The Clearview AI company, already pinned down by the CNIL last year, has just increased the bill, since it still and again refuses to comply with the sanctions of the French authority.
Clearview AI is an American company specializing in the processing of photos and video screenshots, then reused to run a facial recognition tool that would be fed with some 20 billion images. The company was already sanctioned last year with a heavy fine by the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL), which had to increase the note in the face of the silence of the latter. Is it a waste of time?
Clearview persists and signs…
On October 17, 2022, the CNIL imposed a fine of 20 million euros on Clearview AI. The French data policeman had drawn this first heavy sanction after being ignored by the American company, then put on notice.
The CNIL had previously noted several breaches of the GDPR, such as the unlawful processing of personal data. Clearview AI carries out its activity without a legal basis, whether in the context of the use of its software or the processing of the biometric data on which it feeds, whether on social networks or on the websites it explores.
Clearview AI also does not collect the consent of people appearing in its gigantic image bank (which then takes the form of a search engine), even though some police authorities use it to identify victims, or else perpetrators of wrongdoing. The CNIL had, in passing, added to the package a very particular complexity to assert its rights with the US firm.
…by skipping the CNIL and its sanctions, and by assuming its practices
The fine imposed in 2022 was accompanied by a request to delete the data and an obligation to comply with the GDPR within two months. To encourage Clearview AI a little more, the company was put on a penalty payment of 100,000 euros per day of delay, to be paid in the event of non-compliance with the decision.
And imagine that the American facial recognition site has once again zapped the CNIL. The company obviously did not pay the first fine of 20 million euros, nor did it end its collection of photos. The French authority therefore decided to take the next step, by liquidating the penalty payment, claiming an additional 5.2 million euros from the company.
The New York service explained a few months ago that it could not delete the data of French residents, because it simply does not know how to determine the nationality of the people appearing on the aspirated shots. It claims to collect only information accessible to the public, in the same way as a Bing or a Google.
Source : CNIL
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