Applebee’s, Red Lobster, Other Restaurants Hit with Biometric Privacy Suit in Illinois Over AI Voice Ordering Systems

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Applebee’s, Red Lobster, Chipotle and others face a proposed class action that alleges the restaurants’ artificial intelligence-powered voice ordering systems unlawfully collect, use and store indefinitely Illinois consumers’ biometric voiceprints without consent. 

According to the 43-page complaint, Applebee’s, Red Lobster, Chipotle, Blaze Pizza, Noodles & Company and Portillo’s each use an automated voice ordering system, developed and provided by defendants Interactions LLC and SYNQ3, that uses an AI voice assistant to help customers place food orders over the phone, answer questions and give directions. The restaurants’ voice ordering systems collect, store and use customers’ voiceprints to “understand, interpret, analyze, and/or make use of speech signals” and to fulfill machine learning processes, which helps the systems “become more accurate over time,” the lawsuit states. 

The filing alleges, however, that the defendants capture, collect and store the voiceprints of Illinois consumers without satisfying the strict disclosure and consent requirements of the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). 

The suit claims that the restaurants have never adequately informed customers who’ve interacted with their automated voice ordering systems that the systems collect and/or store their voiceprints, or of the specific purpose and length of time for which the biometric data will be kept and used. Further, the restaurants have neither obtained written consent from voice-ordering consumers with regard to capturing their voiceprints nor shared any data retention or destruction policies concerning when the voiceprints would be permanently erased, the lawsuit alleges. 

The foregoing are all requirements under the Illinois BIPA, the suit relays. 

The complaint stresses that if the voiceprints collected by the defendants were to “fall into the wrong hands,” by data breach or otherwise, nefarious actors could use consumers’ biometrics to “subvert such individuals’ expectations of personal privacy, grossly violate their respective senses of dignity, and otherwise flout notions of common decency.” 

According to the case, each of the defendant restaurants began incorporating automated voice ordering systems into their operations at various times between 2017 and 2021, purportedly to improve customer experience and free up staff for other tasks. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all Illinois residents who had their voiceprint or biometric information collected, captured, received or otherwise obtained and/or stored by one or more of the defendants’ automated voice ordering systems. 

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