![]() In October, the French data protection authority became the third EU regulator to fine Clearview 20 million euros ($19 million) for violating European privacy rules. Since Marx filed his complaint, other people and privacy groups across Europe have done the same. The region might boast the world's strictest privacy laws, but European regulators, including in Hamburg, are struggling to enforce them. “That is too slow, even if you take into account that it’s the first case of its kind.”Īcross Europe, millions of people’s faces are appearing in search engines operated by companies like Clearview. “It’s almost been two and a half years since I complained about ClearView AI, and the case is still open,” says Marx, who works as a security researcher at the IT security company Security Research Labs. A spokesperson for the regulator told WIRED that the case had been closed, but Marx says he has not been notified of the outcome. That complaint was the first filed against Clearview in Europe, but it’s still unclear whether the case has been resolved. So in February 2020 he filed a complaint with his local privacy regulator in Hamburg. To him, it was obvious that Clearview was violating Europe’s privacy law, the GDPR, by using his face, or biometric data, without his knowledge or permission. “I’m no longer in control of what people do with my data,” he says. This decision follows the decision by the French authority on Clearview in December 2021, the dec ision by the Italian authority in March 2022 and the decision by the Greek authority in June 2022 : the se authorities prohibited the collection and processing of data by Clearview.Marx says Clearview’s revelation was a wake-up call. The Austrian authority also ordered Clearview to appoint a representat ive in the EU, to enable EU citizens to exercise their rights more easily and for regulators to have a contact person in the EU. Complaints have been filed with data protection authorities in France, Austria, Italy, Greece and the United Kingdom. The images for this come from social media accounts and other online sources. The company claims to have "the largest known database of more than 10 billion facial images" and is aiming to reach 100 billion to make almost every person worldwide identifiable. An alliance of organizations, including noyb, Privacy International (PI), Hermes Center, and Homo Digitalis, filed a series of complaints against Clearview AI Inc. “ -Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at noybĬomplaints in five countries. It seems that Clearview’s processing is only considered illegal if you complain to the data protection authority. The case of the complai nant is likely the same for everyone else in Austria. " It is unfo r tunate that no general ban was issued. Moreover, the Austrian DPA did not consider it necessary to order a general ban of Clearview, but mentioned that it might do so later on. Recently, the French data protection authority fined Clearview again over 20 Mio Euro. This comes as a surprise as the French, the Italian, the Greek and the UK data protection authority issued a fine. No general ban, no fine : Contrary to the other data protection authorities, the Austrian DPA did not issue a fine. Not only does Clearview have to delete all personal data of the complainant, but the data processing lacks a valid legal basis. and does not offer its services in Austria. Clearview AI uses its software to monitor the behavior of people in Austri a, even though the company is based in the U.S. The decision is clear: Collecting images of the complainant for a biometric search engine is illegal, as the GDPR applies to such scraping and selling of personal data from Europeans. ![]() The decision follows similar decisions in Italy, the UK, France and Greece, however no fine was issued.Ĭlearview must comply with GDPR. The US based company scrapes photos from websites to create a permanent searchable d atabase of biometric profiles. is no longer allowed to process biometric data of the complainant and must delete their existing data. The Austrian data protection authority has decided: Clearview AI, the company that sells facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies in the U.S. Clearview AI data use deemed illegal in Austria, however no fine issued ![]()
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