UK Watchdog Fines Clearview AI $9.5 Million For Illegal Collection of Facial Images of Residents

Clearview AI has been known for its controversies for years because of its privacy violations. This time around, the UK watchdog has slapped the firm with more than 9 million fine because of its illegal collection of data images from the residents living in the United Kingdom.

Clearview AI Gets Fined in the UK

According to a report by Sky News on Monday, May 23, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined Clearview AI $9.5 million or £7.55 million for its action of collecting millions of facial recognition data from the British residents.

The country's privacy watchdog has instructed the artificial intelligence company to refrain from gathering data. In addition, it also ordered it to delete all the collected data from its database.

Per UK information commissioner John Edwards, Clearview AI has been engaged in obtaining users' facial data without their consent. Aside from identifying these people, the company also monitors their actions.

Back in 2020, Tech Times reported that the American Civil Liberties Union sued the company for invading the individual's privacy. The complainant filed a lawsuit against Clearview AI for doing "unlawful, privacy-destroying surveillance activities."

In the same year, ICO launched a joint probe with Australia to find out the company's activities. At that time, the firm was slapped with $21.4 million or £17 million because it illegally got over 20 billion facial images from different people.

Although there's no Clearview AI headquarters in the UK anymore, it appears that the organization continues collecting confidential data from the UK people.

Clearview AI Violation

For those unfamiliar with the company's app, Clearview has a special application where a picture of a person can be uploaded. After uploading the data, it will later be identified on the database.

According to a report by Engadget, the technology has been placed in the "legal grey area," although thousands of law enforcement firms have been using it.

Speaking of the firm's violations, Clearview AI has been the subject of cease-and-desist letters from some tech giants, including YouTube, Google, and Twitter.

Furthermore, even the biggest social media site to date, Facebook, has an issue with Clearview. The tech titan wants the AI firm to refrain from collecting its data on its system.

Across Europe, the company has tackled many complaints besides the UK. In Italy, the authorities have fined it €20 million for the same reason of violating the user's privacy.

Last year, the immigrant groups filed a lawsuit against Clearview AI for storing the biggest human faces database in the world. The complainants said that what the company was doing was very "invasive."

Indeed, capturing a person's photo without consent bypasses his/her rights as an individual. Speaking of which, all people are rightful to know the purpose of the collected data from them.

Clearly, invading someone's privacy needs to be stopped since it will just get more dangerous when private information is leaked to other individuals or groups.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Joseph Henry