A 61-year-old man sues Macy's, saying he was jailed and assaulted after being falsely identified as a store robber by facial recognition

• A Texas man is suing Macy's and EssilorLuxottica over the use of facial recognition tech that mistook him for an armed robber.
• Harvey Murphy Jr. was assaulted and raped in prison but later released without charge.
• Retailers have increasingly turned to facial recognition, fuelling mistaken identity fears. 

A 61-year-old man is suing Macy's and the parent company of Sunglass Hut over the use of facial recognition tech that mistook him for an armed robber.

Harvey Murphy Jr. was identified as the perpetrator of an armed robbery at a Sunglass Hut store in 2022 and an earlier robbery at Macy's, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month — despite being nearly 2,000 miles away at the time.

The lawsuit says that Murphy was assaulted and raped in prison after being arrested.

He was later released without charge after it emerged he had been in jail in Sacramento for unrelated charges at the time of the armed robbery, his lawyers told the Washington Post.

His lawyers said that he has a criminal record that dates back to the 1980s but that none of his offenses involved violence. "In the last 30 years, he has built a new life," they said.

Murphy was identified as the perpetrator of the robbery after the parent company of Sunglass Hut — EssilorLuxottica — worked with its retail partner Macy's to use facial recognition software to analyze surveillance footage of the incident.

A warrant was then put out for Murphy's arrest, with the 61-year-old being taken into custody when he went to the DMV to renew his license.

He is now suing Macy's, EssilorLuxottica, and three individuals involved in the case for $10 million in damages for the physical pain and "extreme mental anguish" sustained in the arrest and subsequent assault.

The use of facial recognition technology in retail stores has come under growing scrutiny in recent years and fuelled fears that it may lead to more cases of mistaken arrests.

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission banned Rite Aid from using the tech in its stores after it falsely flagged thousands of shoppers as suspected criminals, with Black, Asian, Latino, and female consumers the most likely to be misidentified.

Macy's and EssilorLuxottica did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.