Chicago delivery robot biometric privacy lawsuits (Coco and Serve)

Two proposed class actions filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois accuse the companies behind Chicago's sidewalk delivery robots of scanning people's faces and hands without consent. The suits target Serve Robotics Inc. and Cyan Robotics Inc., which operates the Coco robots, under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

The complaints were filed in early October 2026. Law360 reported them on October 13, and the Chicago Tribune reported on October 15 that they had been filed the previous week. Both companies deny collecting biometric data. No court has ruled, and there is no settlement.

Serve Robotics is a Nasdaq-listed sidewalk delivery company that was spun off from Uber in 2021. It launched in 14 Chicago neighborhoods with Uber Eats on September 30, 2025, and has also delivered for Grubhub, according to Bloomberg Law.

Cyan Robotics Inc. operates the Coco delivery robots, which have run in Chicago since late 2024 for Uber Eats and DoorDash, Bloomberg Law reported. The city licensed Coco in November 2024 under its Personal Delivery Device pilot program, which is set to expire in May 2027.

The plaintiff suing Serve is Barry Schain, a Lincoln Park resident. The plaintiff suing Coco is Mitchell Breidinger, who lives on the Near North Side. The reports reviewed by Class Action Pulse did not name the plaintiffs' lawyers or give case numbers.

According to the Chicago Tribune's account of the complaints, Breidinger ordered through DoorDash and received his order from a Coco robot on September 29, 2026. Schain ordered through Uber Eats and received his order from a Serve robot on October 4, 2026. Neither selected robot delivery. The complaints say delivery apps can assign a robot without the customer choosing one.

The complaints allege the robots' cameras and LiDAR sensors captured three-dimensional geometry of the plaintiffs' faces and hands as they took their food, including "the distance from the sensor to the tip of the nose, the bridge of the nose, the cheekbones, the brow, the chin and jaw, and the shape and position of the hands reaching toward the robot." They allege the data was streamed to remote operators, used to train the companies' AI models and shared with third parties. The Coco complaint names OpenAI as one recipient. ABC7 reported that the suits say bystanders on the sidewalk are scanned too.

The plaintiffs say the companies never told them biometric data was being collected, never stated a purpose or retention period and never obtained written consent, as BIPA requires. They say they would have declined robot delivery or the order had they known. These are allegations, not findings.

Serve told CBS Chicago: "Serve Robotics is aware of the complaint and will defend against it. Our 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."

Carl Hansen, Coco's head of government relations, told ABC7 Chicago that the suit "fundamentally misunderstands our technology" and that Coco has "not collected biometric data in Chicago." He said Coco has "never used LiDAR in Chicago," that the data it shares is "anonymous navigational data" and that it "never share[s] video from the beginning or end of a trip."

Nothing beyond the filings. No judge has ruled on whether robot camera or sensor data counts as a biometric identifier. That will be a central question. BIPA covers scans of face and hand geometry, but its definition expressly excludes photographs, so courts will have to decide what the robots actually capture and how it is processed.

According to the Tribune's account, each complaint proposes a class of customers who, through the date of class certification, received an order placed on DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub or another platform that was delivered in Illinois by the defendant's robot and who were recorded by its cameras or LiDAR. Serve customers fall under the Schain case and Coco customers under the Breidinger case.

Bystanders who never ordered are described in the allegations but do not appear in the class definition as reported. No class has been certified, and the definition may change.

There is no claim form. If you received a robot delivery in Chicago, save the order confirmation, the delivery date and the app you used. Your order history in the DoorDash, Uber Eats or Grubhub app may show which deliveries a robot completed.

Because the reports do not name the plaintiffs' lawyers, the most direct step is to talk to your own lawyer about the proposed classes. A Class Action Pulse inquiry is only an inquiry and does not join either case.

Nothing is available now. BIPA lets a person recover $1,000 for each negligent violation, or $5,000 for each intentional or reckless one, or actual damages if greater, plus attorneys' fees and an injunction. A 2024 amendment limits recovery to one award when the same data is collected from the same person by the same method, so repeat deliveries may not multiply damages. These figures describe the law, not an award.

• November 2024: Chicago licenses Coco under the delivery robot pilot.
• September 30, 2025: Serve launches in Chicago.
• September 29, 2026: Breidinger's Coco delivery.
• October 4, 2026: Schain's Serve delivery.
• October 13, 2026: Law360 reports the filings.
• May 2027: the city pilot program is set to expire unless extended.

There is no claim, exclusion or objection deadline. Those rights arise only after class certification or a proposed settlement.

BIPA is a 2008 Illinois law that requires written notice and consent before a private company collects biometric identifiers, defined as retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints and scans of hand or face geometry. LiDAR is a sensor that measures distance with laser light to build a 3D map. A remote operator, or pilot, is a person who monitors or steers a robot from elsewhere. Class certification is the court's decision to let a case proceed for a group.

The companies must respond after they are formally served. Early motions are likely to test whether the robots' camera and sensor data is biometric at all. Defendants in state-court BIPA cases also sometimes try to move them to federal court. The city's decision on extending the pilot program may also shape how the robots operate.

A practical note: if you would rather not receive robot deliveries, ask your delivery app's support team whether you can opt out. The complaints say robots can be assigned automatically.

Class Action Pulse did not read the complaints, which were not publicly available. The plaintiffs' names, delivery dates, data allegations, OpenAI reference and class definition come from the Chicago Tribune's report on the complaints. Bloomberg Law supports the company names and Chicago operations. CBS Chicago and ABC7 support the company statements and the pilot program details. The BIPA statute supports the damages and definitions. Case numbers and counsel are unknown.

Class Action Pulse is not a law firm or settlement administrator and does not guarantee eligibility or payment. This article is general information, not legal advice.