Clearview AI Brews Up €30.5M Fine for Its "Not-So-Fresh" Facial Recognition Database
☕️ Sep 04, 2024 ☕️ Matthew Vinck ☕️ GDPR / Privacy
It looks like Clearview AI has just spilled the beans—again. This time, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) is serving up a hot €30.5 million ($33.7 million) fine for brewing up an "illegal database with billions of photos of faces," including those of Dutch citizens, without asking anyone if they wanted a cup.
"Facial recognition is like espresso—highly concentrated and not something you can just hand out to anyone," quipped Dutch DPA chairman Aleid Wolfsen in a statement. "If there's a photo of you online—and let's be honest, who doesn't have one these days?—you could end up in Clearview's mug. And no, this isn’t a scene from some dystopian sci-fi flick or just something happening far away."
Clearview AI has been in regulatory hot water before, facing fines from the U.K., Australia, France, and Italy for collecting publicly available information from the internet to build a colossal database of over 50 billion photos of people's faces—enough to give any privacy advocate a caffeine buzz.
Each image in this database is assigned a unique biometric code, which is then brewed into intelligence services sold to law enforcement agencies. The pitch? It’s a quick way to identify suspects, persons of interest, and victims. But the Dutch DPA isn’t buying it, accusing Clearview of collecting this data without anyone's consent and without offering people a way to see—or delete—their data. And guess what? They’ve only got six states in the U.S. where folks can opt out—definitely not enough cream in that coffee.
The Dutch DPA also noted that despite being caught, Clearview didn’t stop brewing its unauthorized data latte, leading to a possible extra fine of €5.1 million ($5.6 million). Plus, Dutch companies are now barred from using Clearview's services.
"We're now considering if we can hold the baristas—er, management—personally responsible for stirring this GDPR violation," Wolfsen added. "If they knew the rules were being broken and chose to ignore it, we’ll make sure they pay for that extra shot."
Clearview, however, isn’t taking this lying down. They claim they don’t fall under EU regulations because they don’t have a shop—sorry, place of business—in the Netherlands or the E.U., calling the decision “unlawful.”
Just to add a little more foam to the mix, back in June, Clearview settled a lawsuit in Illinois over facial recognition privacy by offering plaintiffs a 23% stake in its future value, instead of a traditional payout—because nothing says "we're sorry" like a promise of future coffee profits. Of course, they didn’t admit to any wrongdoing.
