Class-action lawsuits filed against Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics in Cook County mark the first courtroom test of whether sidewalk delivery robots' onboard cameras trigger Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act, a question whose answer will shape data-collection norms for every autonomous vehicle that shares public space with pedestrians.
Why it matters
Illinois' BIPA, enacted in 2008, defines a biometric identifier as a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or a scan of hand or face geometry2. The statute carries real teeth: if the plaintiffs prevail, each person recorded could receive $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation, or $1,000 per negligent one. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of all customers who received an order delivered by a Coco or Serve robot in Illinois and were recorded by that robot's cameras or LiDAR sensor. ANALYSIS That class definition extends liability well beyond paying customers to bystanders on the sidewalk, a scope that could make the financial exposure enormous for any camera-equipped autonomous platform operating in Illinois.
The complaints allege that the robots scan the faces, hands, and bodies of both customers and passersby without consent, use the biometric data to train the companies' own AI models, and share the data with third parties3. "A person's biometric information is a core part of who they are," wrote David Almeida and Lucas Coughlin, counsel for both plaintiffs. "Now that advanced AI systems allow companies to identify and track individuals solely by their biometric features, the risks of losing control of this data are greater than ever".
The big picture
Both companies deny the allegations. A Coco spokesperson said: "This lawsuit fundamentally misunderstands our technology, we have not collected biometric data in Chicago, and we are confident that this frivolous lawsuit will go away"1. Serve Robotics said its "robots use cameras and sensors to navigate the sidewalks of Chicago safely" and that it "does not use that data to identify individuals and our systems are not designed to identify individuals or create biometric profiles". Coco also says it never shares video from the beginning or end of a trip and that all data it collects complies with Illinois law.
ANALYSIS The gap between the plaintiffs' theory and the companies' defense turns on a technical distinction: whether raw camera footage that captures face and hand geometry constitutes a "scan" of biometric identifiers under BIPA, regardless of whether the operator processes it for identification purposes. That distinction matters far beyond delivery robots. Waymo, Zoox, Tesla, and every other autonomous-vehicle operator running perception stacks in public spaces face the same question.
The Chicago pilot program under which Coco and Serve operate was first introduced to the City Council by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2022 and is set to expire in May 2027 unless the council votes to end it sooner or extends it further. Serve launched in Chicago in September 2025. A petition called No Sidewalk Bots, created by Josh Robertson, urges the city to halt the program until the technology's impact is evaluated; Robertson said over 4,600 Chicagoans have signed.
Between the lines
The Chicago suits land alongside a parallel regulatory push in the Twin Cities that shows how quickly the policy environment is tightening for autonomous vehicles of every size. The Minneapolis City Council voted 7-to-5 to override Mayor Jacob Frey's veto of an ordinance requiring a human safety monitor in the driver's seat of commercial autonomous vehicles, but fell short of the nine votes needed5. Frey had called the measure a "back door ban". Opponents, including Waymo, said the requirement would raise rider costs and push robotaxis out of the city.
St. Paul is taking a different path. The city council adopted a resolution directing its planning commission to study autonomous vehicles and recommend guardrails around safety, data-sharing, and worker protections4. Council president Rebecca Noecker said St. Paul has more "breathing room" and should act before Waymo is "literally at our door". She added: "Depending on what our recommendations are, depending on what our community tells us, there may be guardrails that we can put in place that allow for these vehicles to operate safely. But we need to do the work first to figure out if that's even possible".
ANALYSIS Taken together, the Chicago litigation and the Twin Cities regulatory moves form a single pattern: municipalities are asserting local authority over autonomous-vehicle data practices and labor impacts before state or federal frameworks settle the questions. The BIPA suits give that assertion a private right of action with statutory damages, a lever that city ordinances alone cannot match.
What's next
Chicago's pilot program expiration in May 2027 gives the city council a concrete decision point. The St. Paul planning commission study will produce recommendations whose scope, covering data-sharing alongside safety and labor, mirrors the concerns raised in the BIPA complaints6. Minneapolis council members who backed the override may pursue alternative measures after Thursday's failed vote. For Coco and Serve, the immediate question is whether Cook County judges allow the class definitions to stand. Noecker's framing applies broadly: "We need to do the work first to figure out if that's even possible".