Food delivery robots might not just be carrying burritos. They could be taking a measurement of your face.
Two proposed class action lawsuits in Chicago accuse Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics of collecting biometric information without consent and using it to train their artificial intelligence systems. The Cook County residents allege that the companies violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, which requires companies to provide written notice of the types and purposes of data collection, obtain prior written consent, and maintain set retention and deletion schedules.
Plaintiff Mitchell Breidinger said that even though he hadn’t chosen robot delivery for his DoorDash groceries, a Coco robot showed up at his home in September 2025. Breidinger said that while he was entering a pickup code, the robot’s cameras captured his face, head and hands and that lidar — a type of 3D imaging technology — measured the geometry of those body parts. Breidinger also alleged that a Coco remote operator watched the delivery on video and that the company didn’t notify him in writing of its intent to collect his biometric data or how long it would retain it.
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The other plaintiff, Barry Schain, said he received three Serve Robotics deliveries with his Uber Eats orders even though he hadn’t selected robot delivery.
The lawsuits seek statutory damages of $1,000 per negligent violation or $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation, plus other unspecified relief. Both companies have denied the claims, saying they don’t record the biometric data of customers or people who walk by the robots on the street.
A Serve Robotics spokesperson said in a statement to CNET that its robots “use cameras and sensors to navigate the sidewalks of Chicago safely. Serve does not use that data to identify individuals, and our systems are not designed to identify individuals or create biometric profiles.”
Coco Robotics didn’t respond to a request for comment, but a company spokesperson told the Associated Press that the company collects only navigational data “to make sidewalks safer for all users” and that it does “not share data from the beginning or end of delivery trips under our data sharing partnerships.”
The robot privacy pitfall
Robotic deliveries have expanded significantly since Starship Technologies’ inaugural package delivery nearly a decade ago. Starship said it surpassed 10 million deliveries globally by midyear.
Coco Robotics now operates about 1,000 robots for deliveries in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Miami. Serve Robotics has more than 2,000 in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, Chicago and Alexandria, Virginia. Both companies primarily deliver food for DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub.
According to most projections, global robotic delivery will expand rapidly over the next several years. One forecast estimates that the US market will grow from $252 million in 2025 to $3.1 billion by 2035. And it won’t just be food and groceries. Deliverables could include medicine, industrial parts and a wide variety of retail goods, and there could also be a rise in delivery by drone and boat.
As fear and anger mount over technology increasingly encroaching on people’s everyday lives, delivery robots — which use AI, cameras and lidar to navigate sidewalks — are advancing rapidly. Just as the backlash against other AI surveillance tools and Flock Safety cameras has cropped up all across the US, there’s a growing pushback against potential privacy violations from delivery robots, which have been punched, kicked, tipped over and defaced, according to a recent story by The New York Times.
Privacy experts and digital rights activists also raise concerns that autonomous courier technology will eliminate delivery jobs and be used by the government or corporations to track people’s activities.