Data protection authorities around the world are taking action against the facial recognition software Clearview AI

The business model of the US company Clearview AI is coming under increasing pressure worldwide. The company collected billions of facial photos from publicly available sources, especially from social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and similar services. Data subjects were not informed of the collection and use of their facial photos. Using the photos, Clearview AI created a comprehensive database and used it to develop an automated facial recognition system. Customers of this system are in particular law enforcement agencies and other prosecutors in the US, but companies can also make use of the system. In total, Clearview AI has around 2000 customers worldwide and a database with around 3 billion images.

After a comprehensive investigation by the New York Times in January 2020 drew attention to the company, opposition to the business practice is now also being voiced by the data protection authorities of various countries.

The Hamburg Data Protection Commissioner had already issued an order against Clearview AI in January 2021. According to the order, the company was to delete the biometric data of a Hamburg citizen who had complained to the authority about the storage. The reason given for the decision was that there was no legal basis for processing sensitive data and that the company was profiling by collecting photos over a longer period of time.

Now, several Canadian data protection authorities have also deemed Clearview AI’s actions illegal. In a statement, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner describes the activities as mass surveillance and an affront to the privacy rights of data subjects. The Canadian federal authority published a final report on the investigation into the Clearview AI case. In it, the company was found to have violated several Canadian federal reports.

It is interesting that the Canadian authorities even consider the data collection to be unlawful if Clearview AI were to obtain consents from the data subjects. They argue that already the purpose of the data processing is unlawful. They demand that Clearview AI cease its service in Canada and delete data already collected from Canadian citizens.

The pressure on Clearview AI is also growing due to the fact that the companies from which the data was collected are also opposing the procedure. In addition, the association “noyb” around the data protection activist Max Schrems is dealing with Clearview AI and various European data protection authorities have announced that they will take action against the facial recognition system.