(ANSA) – MILAN, MAY 24 – The US facial recognition company Clearview Ai has been fined £ 7.5 million by the British authorities for illegally collecting facial images from people residing in the United Kingdom. The aim is to create a global online database that the company’s “customers” can tap into for their own purposes.
This is the fourth sanction that the group faces after similar orders issued in Austria, France and Italy. In March of this year, the Italian Data Protection Authority announced a € 20 million fine against Clearview for “illegally processing personal data, including biometric and geolocation data” of Italians. On that occasion, the CEO of Clearview replied that the company, based in the United States, is not subject to European privacy legislation, i.e. it does not respond to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in force in the Union. European. For its part, the organization claims that the facial recognition database with about 20 billion images was created by taking content from public sources, including Facebook and Instagram, therefore nothing that was obtained by harming users’ rights. UK Information Commissioner John Edwards, however, said Clearview’s biggest problem is reselling the information for profit. “The company not only allows face identification on file but effectively monitors people’s behavior and offers it as a commercial service. This is unacceptable. That’s why we have taken action to protect people in the UK by both fining the company and issuing a execution notice to order the cancellation of the database in its possession “. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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