You Ordered Groceries. Did the Robot Take a Scan of Your Face Too?

Chicago's sidewalk delivery robots already crashed into bus shelters and got stuck circling each other on video. Now they're in court.

Two customers filed proposed class actions Oct. 9 against Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics. The lawsuits allege the robots' cameras and LiDAR captured 3D measurements of their faces and hands while they punched in a code to grab their food, without the written notice and consent Illinois' biometric privacy law requires. One plaintiff says he never even picked robot delivery; DoorDash assigned it. The suits also allege the data feeds AI training, with the Coco complaint naming OpenAI.

Both companies deny it. Coco says it has "not collected biometric data in Chicago" and calls the suit frivolous. Serve says its systems aren't designed to identify anybody. The suits ask $1,000 per negligent violation, $5,000 per reckless one. Multiply that across a city's worth of deliveries and you see why lawyers got interested.

Chicago's pilot program runs until May 2027 unless the City Council extends it. A petition to pause it has 4,500-plus signatures, and one alderman already blocked an expansion in his ward.

What we still don't know: what the robots actually store, and whether a judge thinks navigation data counts as a face scan. These are allegations, not findings.