It’s not the first time the US facial recognition company has been fined in Europe.
ADVERTISEMENTDutch authorities fined US facial recognition company Clearview AI €30.5 million for building an illegal database, the watchdog said on Tuesday.
The Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) also issued the company a penalty of up to €5 million for non-compliance.
Euronews Next has reached out to Clearview AI but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.
The DPA said in a statement that “Clearview should never have built the database with photos, the unique biometric codes and other information linked to them”.
Facial recognition technology is used to query the search engine and find an individual based on their photograph.
“Facial recognition is a highly intrusive technology, that you cannot simply unleash on anyone in the world,” said Dutch DPA chairman Aleid Wolfsen, warning the public against using Clearview.
“Clearview breaks the law, and this makes using the services of Clearview illegal. Dutch organisations that use Clearview may therefore expect hefty fines from the Dutch DPA,” he added.
Clearview does not have an office in Europe. It has been fined by other European regulators such as France’s CNIL, the body responsible for issuing sanctions.
In October 2022, France imposed a €20 million fine on Clearview and ordered the company not to collect and process data on individuals located in France without any legal basis and to delete the data of these individuals.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) said in 2023 that Clearview had not sent any proof of compliance within the two-month request.
