24/05/2022
As per MIT Technology Review, 's fined Clearview AI nearly $10 million for collecting the faces of UK citizens from the and social media. The company was also ordered to delete all data on UK citizens.
The decision by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office ( ) is the latest in a series of high-profile levied against the company as data protection authorities around the world consider tighter restrictions on its practices.
The ICO determined that Clearview AI violated data protection laws by collecting personal data without people's consent and requesting additional , such as , when people asked if they were on the database. It discovered that this may have "acted as a disincentive" for people who objected to the scraping of their data.
"The company not only identifies those people, but also effectively monitors their behavior and sells it as a commercial service." That is unacceptable," said the UK's Information Commissioner, John Edwards, in a statement.
Clearview AI claims to have one of the world's largest databases of 20 billion images of people's faces, which it obtained without their consent from publicly available sources such as social media. Clients, such as police departments, pay to search the database for matches.
Data protection authorities around the Western world have identified this as a clear violation of privacy and are now cooperating to put a stop to it. Edwards emphasized that "international cooperation is essential to protect people's privacy rights in 2022," and he is scheduled to meet with European regulators this week in Brussels. The investigation into Clearview AI was conducted in collaboration with the Australian Information Commissioner.
Clearview AI was fined €20 million ($21 million) earlier this year by Italian data protection authorities for violating data protection rules. Similar conclusions have been reached by authorities in Australia, Canada, France, and Germany.
Clearview AI is being scrutinized even in the United States, which lacks a federal data protection law. The ACLU won a major settlement earlier this month that prevents Clearview from selling its database to most businesses across the United States. For the next five years, Clearview AI cannot sell access to its database to anyone, including the police, in the state of Illinois, which has a biometric data law.
The ICO's decision, according to Silkie Carlo, director of the UK-based digital rights group Big Brother Watch, "effectively stops Clearview from operating in the UK," she said on Twitter.
Original article by MIT Technology Review at
https://lnkd.in/eSDmcRVx
Photo: pixabay
