UK fines Clearview AI over £7.5M, bans company from obtaining personal data

The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office, or ICO, imposed a fine of just over £7.5 million on Clearview AI Inc. for violating the country's data protection laws by using the images of people collected from the internet to create a global online facial recognition database.

The regulator also ordered the facial recognition tech company to stop the collection and use of U.K. residents' personal data and to delete information it had already secured, according to a May 23 news release.

The ICO's decision follows a joint probe carried out with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on Clearview AI's use of images and biometric data, as well as data scraping from the internet for facial recognition.

The investigation found that the company lacked transparency in using the information of people in the U.K. as they were not notified of how Clearview AI plans to use their information. The company did not have a lawful reason to collect the information and failed to meet higher data protection standards for biometric data, among others.

In November 2021, the ICO proposed fining Clearview AI about £17 million after a preliminary finding that the company breached data-protection laws. The company was also found to have violated Australian privacy law for collecting sensitive information without consent.