May 24, 2022
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined facial recognition company Clearview AI more than 7.5 million euros.
The ICO found that Clearview AI breached U.K. data protection laws by failing to use the information of people in the U.K. in a fair and transparent manner, and failing to have a legitimate reason to collect people’s information. Clearview failed to introduce a process to prevent the data from being retained indefinitely while also failing to meet the higher data protection standards required for biometric data.
The UK’s privacy watchdog has also instructed the company to delete the data of British residents while stopping the use of the personal data of U.K. residents.
“The company not only enables identification of those people, but effectively monitors their behavior and offers it as a commercial service. That is unacceptable. People expect that their personal information will be respected, regardless of where in the world their data is used,” said John Edwards, U.K. Information Commissioner.
The UK is the fourth country, after France, Italy and Australia, to take enforcement action against the company.
The sources for this piece include an article in BBC.
