Chicago Robot Firms Face Biometric Privacy Suits

Two customers filed separate class-action lawsuits in Cook County court on Oct. 9, 2026, against Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics alleging Illinois Biometric Privacy Act violations. Mitchell Breidinger says a DoorDash grocery order in September 2025 went to a Coco robot he did not choose; he stood close to enter a code while cameras and LiDAR allegedly recorded his face and hands, with a remote operator watching live. Barry Schain says he got three Serve deliveries via Uber Eats without choosing robots, most recently Oct. 4. The suits seek $1,000 per negligent or $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation and claim data was kept for AI training and shared with third parties including OpenAI. Coco says it is confident that this frivolous lawsuit will go away and has not collected biometric data in Chicago; a spokesperson said the data shared is navigational data used to make sidewalks safer for all users and is not from the beginning or end of trips. Serve says it will defend against the lawsuit and does not use that data to identify individuals; its systems are not designed to identify individuals or create biometric profiles. The 2022 pilot expires May 2027 unless extended. Josh Robertson's petition has more than 4,500 signatures, and Ald. Daniel La Spata rejected expansion in February after more than 83 percent of survey respondents opposed it.