Clearview AI ordered to delete facial recognition data belonging to UK residents

The Information Commissioner's Office ordered the deletion of all data belonging to UK residents. The UK's data protection laws were not followed by Clearview.

It is the fourth time that Clearview has been ordered to destroy national data in this way, following similar orders in Australia, France, and Italy.

Clearview claims it has 20 billion images from public sources. The American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit against it after it agreed to restrict itself in the US to selling to federal agencies and police departments.

The Metropolitan Police, Ministry of Defence, and the National Crime Agency have all used the services of Clearview. The company no longer offers its services to UK organizations, but the data it has collected from UK residents can still be used by customers in other countries.

The information commissioner in the UK said that the company collected a lot of information on UK residents. The company was fined and issued with an enforcement notice in order to protect people in the UK.

Clearview violated several tenets of UK data protection law, including failing to use data in a way that is fair and transparent.

It's not clear how this will be enforced if Clearview has no business or customers in the country. In response to a similar deletion order and fine issued in Italy under EU law earlier this year, Clearview's CEO Hoan Ton-That responded that the US-based company was simply not subject to EU legislation. We have reached out to the two organizations for more clarity on these points.