Clearview AI faces criminal complaint from Austrian NGO over EU data collection

Biometrics companies might be divided into two categories: those that seek regulation as an anchor for public trust, and those that run ahead of it to try and reap the rewards. At this point, Clearview AI should not be surprised when regulators classify it as the second, given how many governments it has alarmed with its facial recognition technology for law enforcement.

The firm has already faced fines totally roughly 100 million euros from data protection agencies in France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. It has also had near-catastrophic trouble in U.S. courts.

The latest nation to pull a yellow card on the company is Austria, via noyb, a data protection nonprofit based in Vienna.

“Today, noyb has filed a criminal complaint against Clearview AI and its managers,” says a blog post from the organization. “The facial recognition company is known for scraping billions of photos of Europeans and people around the world on the internet – and selling its facial recognition system to law enforcement and state actors. Several EU data protection authorities have already imposed fines and bans on Clearview AI. But the U.S. company simply ignores these actions.”

Nyob says it has a legal route to pursue under Article 84 of the GDPR, which “allows EU Member States to foresee criminal sanctions for GDPR breaches.” Austria’s own law gets even more targeted: “in contrast to GDPR violations, criminal violations also allow actions to be taken against managers and to use the full range of criminal procedures, including EU-wide actions. If successful, Clearview AI and its executives could face jail time and be held personally liable, in particular if traveling to Europe.”

Max Schrems, a privacy lawyer and the founder of nyob, says “facial recognition technology is extremely invasive. It allows for mass surveillance and immediate identification of millions of people. Clearview AI amassed a global database of photos and biometric data, which makes it possible to identify people within seconds. Such power is extremely concerning and undermines the idea of a free society, where surveillance is the exception instead of the rule.”

Biometric Update has reached out to Clearview AI for comment.

Article Topics

biometric data  |  biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  Clearview AI  |  data collection  |  EU  |  GDPR  |  noyb