France: Privacy watchdog fines Clearview again for failing to comply with privacy orders
"Clearview fined again in France for failing to comply with privacy orders", 10 May 2023
Clearview AI, the U.S. startup that’s attracted notoriety in recent years for a massive privacy violation after it scraped selfies off the internet and used people’s data to build a facial recognition tool it pitched to law enforcement and others, has been hit with another fine in France over non-cooperation with the data protection regulator.
The overdue penalty payment of €5.2 million has been issued by the French regulator, the CNIL — on top of a €20 million sanction it slapped the company with last year for breaching regional privacy rules.
Clearview has been found to have breached a number of requirements set out in law — by France’s CNIL and several other regional data protection authorities, including authorities in the U.K., Italy and Greece, garnering several tens of millions in total fines to date.
Whether Clearview will ever pay any of these fines remains an open question, since the US-based company has not been cooperating with EU regulators.
In a press release today, the CNIL said Clearview has failed to complied with the order it issued last October — when it imposed the maximum possible size of penalty it could (€20 million) for three types of breaches of the GDPR.
We reached out to the CNIL with questions. A spokesperson for the regulator confirmed to us that Clearview has not paid any of the penalties the CNIL has issued, telling TechCrunch: “They still are [non-]compliant — that’s why we imposed an overdue penalty payment of €5,200,000.”
Clearview was also contacted for a response.
Its PR agency, the LAKPR Group, responded with its (now) customary denial that the EU law applies to its business:
Clearview AI does not have a place of business in France or the EU, it does not have any customers in France or the EU, and does not undertake any activities that would otherwise mean it is subject to the GDPR.