Second biometric data privacy lawsuit against Clearview AI also includes partner supplying police

The second lawsuit alleging biometric privacy violations by Clearview AI under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has been filed, with CNet spotting a filing in New York, where Clearview is based, seeking $5 million in damages.

The suit also names business technology supplier CDW, which is alleged to have licensed Clearview’s facial recognition technology to the Chicago Police Department and other law enforcement agencies.

“The CPD was so impressed with the results that it gave approximately 30 CPIC officials full access to Clearview’s technology, effectively unleashing this vast, Orwellian surveillance tool on the citizens of Illinois,” according to the lawsuit.

CPIC is the Crime Prevention and Information Center operated by Chicago Police.

The complaint (via Buzzfeed) alleges that “Clearview and CDW actively collected, stored and used Plaintiff’s biometrics – and the biometrics of most of the residents of Illinois – without providing notice, obtaining informed written consent or publishing data retention policies.”

There are, therefore, more than 100 class members of the suit brought by Chicago resident Mario Calderon, and potential damages exceed $5 million.

A BIPA suit was also filed against Clearview in January, and similarly cites the company’s culling of images from social media as a violation of the act’s informed consent rules.

Clearview’s CEO said in a recent interview that his company’s practices are protected by the First Amendment, a novel defense which would require a judgement that data scraping is a form of free speech.

Facebook recently settled a case which presumably has less members in the class, since Clearview scraped it and other sites for data, for a record $550 million, which may not be enough for judicial sign-off.

Article Topics

biometric data  |  Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA)  |  biometrics  |  Clearview AI  |  data protection  |  facial recognition  |  legislation  |  police  |  privacy