from the loves-law-enforcement,-breaking-laws,-long-walks-on-the-beach dept

Clearview has been giving web scraping a bad name since its arrival on the scene a couple of years ago. Scraping isn’t necessarily bad. Web scraping can provide data sets that help improve things for people everywhere. But this effort can also be used to do the sort of thing Clearview has been doing: grabbing any and all personal data/photos that aren’t locked down, shoehorning them into a massive database, and selling access (along with its facial recognition AI) to anyone who wants it, from gym owners to billionaires to cops.

Facial recognition algorithms have always been sketchy. But Clearview is so sketchy even other opportunists in the same field refuse to associate themselves with this upstart. Plenty of governments have also distanced themselves from Clearview, most in the form of enforcement actions.

The company that loves to pitch its wares to law enforcement doesn’t seem to have much respect for the laws these agencies enforce. It has been forced to withdraw from Illinois due to its violation of that state’s privacy laws. It is facing legal action elsewhere for its nonconsensual collection and distribution of people’s information.

Outside of the US, it’s faring even worse. It has been forcibly ejected from Australia. It has been fined $9.4 million by the UK for violating that country’s privacy laws. It has been fined by the Italian government for the same thing, adding another bunch of Euros to its tab ($21 million American).

Those aren’t its only European losses. In December 2021, French regulators determined Clearview had violated that country’s privacy laws. Roughly six months later, the government arrived at a dollar amount: the maximum amount allowed by the GDPR, €20,000,000.

Clearview continues to maintain that, as an American company, it’s not subject to any other country’s laws. So be it, but that’s not reducing the amount owed to these countries — countries the company would undoubtedly like to do business with at some point in the future.

The facial recognition company’s refusal to settle its outstanding worldwide debts has only put it more deeply in debt, as Natasha Lomas reports for TechCrunch:

In a press release today, the CNIL said Clearview has failed to complied with the order it issued last October — when it imposed the maximum possible size of penalty it could (€20 million) for three types of breaches of the GDPR.

Never mind compound interest. The daily fees incurred by Clearview’s refusal to settle up puts that to shame.

At the time the CNIL committee responsible for issuing sanctions gave Clearview a two month deadline to comply with the order — with the threat of further fines if it did not do so (at a cost of per overdue day).

And that brings us to the updated total, which now has another several million Euro added to it.

“On 13 April 2023, the restricted committee considered that the company had not complied with the order and consequently imposed an overdue penalty payment of €5,200,000 on Clearview AI.”

It may turn out the French government is powerless to extract this from the US-based company. But perhaps it might be wise for Clearview to at least discuss the issue with French regulators or perhaps ask a local court whether or not this fine is enforceable outside of the country, which might at least allow it to prevent adding another €100,000/day to its accounts (possibly) payable balance.

Then again, Clearview has rarely been interested in interacting with government agencies that don’t condone its actions, preferring to spend time with those who see its tech as something worth exploiting, even if the tech’s purveyor continues to engage in questionable activities and even more questionable sales pitches. Until a court (either stateside or overseas) makes a declaration about Clearview’s financial and legal culpability, it’s safe to say the company will continue to violate laws until a greater power shuts it down.

Filed Under: cnil, data protection, facial recognition, fines, france, privacy
Companies: clearview