Anna Bradley-Smith and JJ Ko reports:
McDonald’s should have to face claims it violates Illinois data protection laws by collecting customers’ voiceprints without their consent at its drive-thrus, plaintiff Shannon Carpenter has argued in response to McDonald’s attempt to have his lawsuit dismissed.
Carpenter, who filed his class action lawsuit in April and recently had it split between state and federal courts, said in the memo that U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle should allow the claims in federal court to proceed because his allegations are well-pled and address all of McDonald’s’ points for dismissal.
McDonald’s argued that Carpenter does not allege the fast food giant collects unique identifying information that could constitute a voiceprint biometric, but Carpenter says that “wholly ignores” his allegations that McDonald’s AI voice assistant “extracts exactly the type of unique ‘identifying’ voiceprint data that BIPA seeks to protect including the speaker’s pitch, volume, duration, age, gender, nationality, and national origin.”
Read more at TopClassActions.
The McDonald’s Drive-Thru BIPA Class Action Lawsuit is Carpenter v. McDonald’s Corp., Case No. 1:21-cv-02906, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.