A New York teenager sued Apple for $ 1 billion for linking him falsely with thefts at Apple stores

An 18-year-old teenager from New York filed a $ 1 billion lawsuit against Apple alleging that the company's facial recognition software falsely linked him to a series of robberies that took place at several Apple stores located in the US last year.

Ousmane Bah, in his lawsuit against Cupertino, a California-based company, said he received his first summons to appear before a Boston court in May last year, where he was accused of stealing assets worth $ 1,200 from an Apple store local store. In his lawsuit, he claimed that the night the robbery took place he was attending his graduation night in Manhattan.

Criminal complaints were also filed against him in other cities such as New Jersey, Delaware and Manhattan.

Then, later in the year, he received another shock when he was arrested at his home in New York on November 29 and charged with theft at an Apple store. The arrest warrant included a photograph of the suspect who did not look like Bah. Despite that, the New York Police Department went ahead with the arrest. "The arrest left him feeling humiliated, afraid, and deeply concerned," said the lawsuit as reported by Law 360.

However, prosecutors began to drop the charges after a New York Police Detective (NYPD) examined the images of the theft at the Apple store and realized that the man picked up by the cameras Apple was not the same as Bah. "He was forced to respond to multiple false accusations that led to severe stress and hardship," Bah said in the lawsuit, as reported by Bloomberg.

Apparently, the thief stole Bah's temporary apprentice permit that used his name and other personal details and used it to identify him in Apple stores.

In his lawsuit, Bah has stated that, since his temporary ID did not have a photograph, Apple's facial recognition system associated the thief's face with Bah's details, which eventually led to multiple cases being brought against him in all states.

Apple and Security Industry Specialists Inc., which the New York teenager has mentioned in his complaint, have not yet commented on it.