Digital privacy advocates are calling on European authorities to arrest executives at US AI company Clearview AI for allegedly violating EU privacy laws.
Vienna-based digital rights organization NGO Neuve claims that US companies are scraping billions of images from the internet, including photos of civilians in the European Union, to power surveillance systems sold to law enforcement and state agencies around the world.
“This facial recognition company is known for scraping billions of photos of Europeans and people around the world on the Internet and selling its facial recognition systems to law enforcement and state actors,” Noyve said today. its founder Max Schrems argues that American corporations are undermining the fundamental principles of society.
“Facial recognition technology is extremely invasive. It allows us to monitor millions of people at scale and instantly identify them.
“Clearview AI has amassed a global database of photo and biometric data, allowing us to identify people within seconds.
“Such powers are extremely worrying and undermine the idea of a free society that surveillance is the exception rather than the rule,” he said.
Since 2022, data protection authorities in Greece, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK have fined the company a total of around €100 million for breaches of privacy laws.
However, despite the penalties, the company has not acted in good faith.
“Clearview AI is simply ignoring EU authorities.”
Neuve said the U.S.-based company has largely succeeded in avoiding enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and has ignored orders from EU regulators.
“EU Data Protection Authority I couldn’t think of a way to enforce fines or bans. This allows Clearview AI to effectively circumvent the law,” Noyb argued.
Compared to other U.S. companies such as Meta, Google, and Amazon, Clearview has no presence in the EU, making it difficult to implement rules.
Without a mechanism to enforce compliance, European regulators are left with penalties that could amount to little more than a paper warning for companies like Clearview.
U.S. lawmakers brought up the loophole, which U.S. tech company Clearview AI has used as a convenient model for Silicon Valley companies frustrated by European regulations.
For Schrems, Clearview AI is “just spitting in the faces of EU authorities”.
Noyve said it intends to close a major law enforcement loophole that allows U.S. tech company Clearview AI to bypass European data protection laws.
So far, Clearview AI has only been hit with administrative fines under the GDPR. However, under EU law, that is not the only possible outcome.
Article 84 of the GDPR allows EU countries to add criminal penalties for the most serious data protection violations, allowing prosecutors to treat certain GDPR violations not only as civil or administrative offenses but also as criminal offenses.
Neuve hopes that European authorities will go beyond fines and actually pursue Clearview and its executives under criminal law.
“If successful, Clearview AI and its executives could face prison terms and personal liability, especially if they traveled to Europe,” the EU NGO said.
