Beautiful Virgin Islands

Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

Facial recognition company Clearview AI fined £7.5m for illegally using images of Brits scraped from online

Facial recognition company Clearview AI fined £7.5m for illegally using images of Brits scraped from online

The company is accused of illegally scraping 20 billion images of people's faces from the web without their knowledge or permission, and then using them to form a global facial recognition database.
Facial recognition company Clearview AI has been fined more than £7.5m by the UK's privacy watchdog for collecting the facial images of people in Britain from the web and social media.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said that globally the company illegally collected more than 20 billion images of people's faces to create a global online database for facial recognition.

It has issued an enforcement notice ordering the company to stop obtaining and using the personal data of UK residents and to delete the data on them that it has already collected.

"Given the high number of UK internet and social media users, Clearview AI's database is likely to include a substantial amount of data from UK residents, which has been gathered without their knowledge," the ICO stated.

"Although Clearview AI no longer offers its services to UK organisations, the company has customers in other countries, so the company is still using personal data of UK residents."

Clearview AI offers an app which customers can use to upload a photograph of someone to try and identify them by checking them against its unlawful database.

The company's customers include numerous commercial and police organisations and its database has provoked concerns from US politicians and civil liberties organisations.

John Edwards, the UK information commissioner, said the company "not only enables identification" of the people in its database "but effectively monitors their behaviour and offers it as a commercial service. That is unacceptable."

The watchdog had in November 2021 announced its provisional intent to fine the company over £17m as part of a joint investigation with the Australian privacy watchdog. It is not clear why the final penalty was only £7.5m.

It has not published the formal monetary penalty notice - which normally includes details of the investigation - as the document is still going through a redaction process, a spokesperson told Sky News.

The fine was announced as the ICO took part at an international privacy conference panel on facial recognition and privacy rights.

Sky News has contacted Clearview for a response to the fine.

The use of facial recognition technology by police has been controversial in the UK and beyond.

Fraser Sampson, the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, recently warned police forces against deploying the technology to identify potential witnesses and not just suspects.

Successive independent commissioners have warned that automatic facial recognition technology is even more privacy-invasive than the police collection of DNA and fingerprints.

However, unlike those biometrics, the government has not put facial recognition images on a specific statutory footing which would ensure limits and oversights on how the authorities can use them.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
×