Justice criticizes the company specializing in facial recognition for having collected millions of data illegally. The company will have to delete all its data concerning British citizens.
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After the United States, it is the United Kingdom’s turn to sanction Clearview AI. The American company, specialized in facial recognition, was inflicted on Monday May 23 a fine of 7.5 million Sterling books (about 8.85 million euros).
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the British equivalent of the National Commission for Data Protection (CNIL), criticizes the company for having collected without their agreement on the web and social networks The faces of millions of British. More specifically, justice has considered that Clearview AI did not use its database in a “fair and transparent” manner, because “individuals are not informed or do not expect their personal data to be used from this way “.
ICO judged that the company had no legitimate reason to collect this information. In addition to the fine, it requires the American firm that it ceases to “recover and use personal data” and that it “deletes the data of British residents from its systems”.
Contacted by the online media The Verge , Clearview Ai clarified that, according to her, “the decision to impose a fine is incorrect” because the firm “n ‘has no market in the United Kingdom “and as such is not subject to the jurisdiction of ICO.
a collection deemed illegal
Clearview AI indeed has a database of more than 20 billion shots, made up of scanning images published on the Internet worldwide, for example on Twitter or Instagram. And it is precisely this point that is reproached to him today.
“In view of the British number who uses social networks, the Clearview database can contain a large number of data on British residents, which have been collected without being aware”, explains the ICO. In addition to the collection, deemed illegal, the business of Clearview AI is also pointed out. “The company not only allows the identification of people, but controls their behavior and offers it in commercial service. It is unacceptable,” reacted John Edwards, Information Commissioner of the United Kingdom.
Clearview AI had made himself known by offering facial recognition services to individuals, but also to the police. Using its gigantic database, the firm makes it possible to compare faces and thus identify people from a single photo.
If the company highlights its contribution to public security, having for example allowed the FBI to capture an Argentinian pedocriminal in 2020, the process itself questions many states and associations. On May 9, the American Union for Civil Liberties had succeeded, after two years of legal battle, in obliging the company to no longer sell its database to private actors in the State of Illinois. Italy and Australia today lead a battle similar to that of the United Kingdom. In France, the CNIL has, since December 2021, formal notice clearview ai to delete the data collected in France and to stop its activities on the territory .