Clearview AI fined £17 million by the UK

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced that the face recognition tracking system Clearview AI violated the British data protection law and issued a fine of 17 million pounds.

The ICO stated that Clearview AI did not inform users that it was collecting more than 3 billion user photos around the world, nor did it inform users that they were processing data.

British regulators stated that Clearview AI apparently did not process data in a manner expected or fair to users, and that data collection is still illegal.

Including but not limited to non-compliance with the GDPR regulations of biometric data, failure to specify procedures to prevent data from being retained indefinitely, and failure to inform British citizens.

This data collection and processing company was quietly launched in 2016, and it was not disclosed until 2019 when some law enforcement agencies reported the usage.

Clearview AI collects more than 3 billion photos through social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and then uses algorithms to process them.

The collected data is associated with the user’s Twitter and other social networking accounts, and even law enforcement agencies can match the specific user’s real identity through private data.

As long as users post their photos on social networking sites, they may be tracked continuously, and the final processed data is used by law enforcement agencies and commercial companies.

Initially, Clearview AI only sold data to law enforcement agencies for use by law enforcement agencies to track specific targets, but the later leaked data showed that it was lying.

Leaked data shows that Clearview AI also sells data to many commercial companies for use. These commercial companies use data to analyze users to find transaction opportunities.

In addition to the investigation and preliminary penalties by the British regulator, the Australian regulator also requires the company to immediately delete its citizen data pending processing.

In the United States, Illinois stated that it violated state laws and required deletion of data, and received penalties. In addition to regulatory agencies, social networking sites have also disconnected from the company.

For example, both Twitter and Google have sent letters to stop cooperating with the company. Twitter claimed that Clearview AI’s capture of photos and identification and analysis violated its terms of service.

Clearview AI stated that it is currently communicating with regulators and will actively appeal the penalties in the UK, but fines are almost inevitable in this case.