Clearview AI has won an appeal to reverse a sanction imposed by the UK’s data protection authorities for the usage of its facial image database.
For facial recognition services, the company has collected billions of images of people’s faces and data from publicly available material on the internet, including social networking platforms. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined the company £7.5 million last year, alleging that it built its database of more than 20 billion images without informing or obtaining consent from people for images to be collected or used in this manner – but a first-tier tribunal has now overturned that order. Because Clearview’s system was exclusively used by law enforcement authorities outside the UK, it found that the ICO lacked jurisdiction to issue its acceptable enforcement notice, reports Technology News UK.
Clearview originally permitted commercial use of its system. Still, since a legal case in the United States in 2020, it has only accepted clients engaged in law enforcement or national security activities. Clearview AI’s general counsel, Jack Mulcaire, stated that the business is “pleased” with the judgment.
According to an ICO spokeswoman, “the watchdog will ‘take stock’ of the decision and “seriously evaluate the next actions.” It is important to note that this decision does not limit the ICO’s ability to take action against companies based outside of the UK that process data about people in the UK, particularly businesses scraping data about people in the UK, but rather covers a specific exemption related to foreign law enforcement,” the spokesperson said.
