Clearview AI

2022: More than £7.5m fine

On May 23, 2022, it became known that Great Britain fined the American face recognition a Clearview AI Inc. company worth more than 7.5 million pounds sterling ($9.4 million, €8.8 million) for collecting images of people's faces without their consent. British the watchdog data also ordered the company to stop collecting British personal data countries and remove residents' data from its systems.

Illustration: securitylab.ru

Clearview AI Inc. has a database with more than 20 billion images of people's faces collected from the Internet and social networks without the knowledge of users. Customers of the company, including the police, can upload an image of a person to the app and check their database for compliance.

"The company allows you to identify a person and track their actions, offering this as a paid service. This is unacceptable, "- said information UK Commissioner John Edwards.

The UK imposed a fine on Clearview AI Inc. for violating the country's laws on: to protection personal data

• The company "could not use the data honestly and transparently."
• Clearview AI Inc. "had no legitimate reason to collect information about people."
• The organization "did not prevent indefinite storage of data."

According to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the company "no longer offers its services to UK organisations," but data from UK residents can still be used by the organisation's customers in other countries.

Earlier, the French data privacy watchdog CNIL ordered Clearview AI to stop collecting and using data from French citizens.

According to the source, the Clearview AI facial recognition system is used in Ukraine. About 400 Ukrainian investigators are using Clearview AI to investigate war crimes and identify the dead.^[1]

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