(San Francisco) Clearview AI, a start-up specializing in controversial facial recognition technologies, has agreed to stop selling its biometric databases to companies in the United States, a major victory for civil rights group ACLU.
Posted at 5:13 p.m.
ACLU and other organizations filed a lawsuit against Clearview AI two years ago for violating an Illinois biometric privacy law.
This law prohibits the sharing of facial or iris recognition data, or fingerprints, for example, without the permission of the persons concerned.
The agreement announced on Monday, which must be approved by the court, stipulates that Clearview AI can no longer make its face database available to most private entities in the United States. She can continue to cooperate with the authorities (except in Illinois for five years).
“Clearview can no longer treat people’s unique biometric identifiers as a source of unrestricted profit,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, an ACLU deputy director.
He hopes that other potentially affected companies will react accordingly.
“This agreement shows that strong privacy laws can provide real protections against abuse,” he added, referring to the lack of national internet privacy law in states. -United.
“Clearview did not take into account that biometric information can be used to endanger and threaten the lives of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault,” said Linda Xóchitl Tortolero, president of Acción, a Chicago-based charity. who hailed a “big win” for Illinois’ most vulnerable people.
Clearview AI, funded in particular by one of Facebook’s first investors, Peter Thiel, has a database of more than 10 billion faces, collected online, which feed its identification software.
And according to the washington postthe start-up Californian has told its investors that it is on track to have more than 100 billion photos in its database by next year.
Several proceedings are underway against the company in European countries. The Italian Personal Data Protection Authority fined him 20 million euros last March for having introduced “biometric surveillance of people on Italian territory”.
In its press release, the Authority also specified that it had “ordered the company to erase the data relating to persons located in Italy”.