France’s DPA fines Clearview AI €5.2 million for not complying with its order

France’s Data Protection Authority, the CNIL, has issued a penalty to Clearview AI for not complying with its specified compliance requirements in time.

On 17 October 2022, the CNIL fined Clearview AI €20 million and ordered the company not to collect and process data on individuals located in France if there was no legal basis to do so. Clearview AI was also ordered to delete the data of these individuals. The CNIL set a deadline of two months to comply with the order. If these conditions were not fulfilled by the deadline, the company would have to pay a penalty of €100,000 per day.

The CNIL now says that Clearview AI had not sent any evidence on how it had complied with the CNIL’s requirements within this time limit, and has therefore imposed a penalty of €5.2 million on Clearview AI.

Clearview AI collects photographs from a wide range of websites, including social networks, and sells access to its database of images of people through a search engine in which an individual can be searched using a photograph, the CNIL says. The company offers this service to law enforcement authorities.

Privacy regulators in the UK, Australia, Canada and Italy have also taken enforcement action against Clearview AI.

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