Life must be hard for companies that try to make a living by invading people’s privacy. You almost feel sorry for them. Except I don’t.
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)—an independent body set up to uphold information rights—has announced its provisional intent to impose a potential fine of just over £17 million (roughly US$23 million) on Clearview AI.
In addition, the ICO has issued a provisional notice to stop further processing of the personal data of people in the UK and delete what ClearviewAI has, following alleged serious breaches of the UK’s data protection laws.
What is Clearview AI?
Clearview AI was founded in 2017, and started to make waves when it turned out to have created a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You could take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared.
According to its own website, Clearview AI provides a “revolutionary intelligence platform”, powered by facial recognition technology. The platform includes a facial network of 10+ billion facial images scraped from the public internet, including news media, mugshot websites, public social media, and other open sources.
Yes, scraped from social media, which means that if you’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or similar, then your face may well be in the database.
Clearview AI says it uses its faceprint database to help law enforcement fight crimes. Unfortunately it’s not just law enforcement. massive faceprint scraping company clearview hauled coals
