Clearview AI deemed illegal in the EU, but only partial deletion ordered

Clearview AI’s biometric photo database deemed illegal in the EU, but only partial deletion ordered Clearview AI is a US company that scrapes photos from websites to create a permanent searchable database of biometric profiles. US authorities use the face recognition database to find further information on otherwhise unknown persons in pictures and videos. Following legal submissions by noyb, the Hamburg Data Protection Authority yesterday preliminarily deemed such biometric profiles of Europeans illegal and requested Clearview AI to delete the biometric profile of the complainant. Link to the consultation and request by the Hamburg DPA “Right to your face”. A Hamburg resident and member of the Chaos Computer Club, Matthias Marx, discovered that Clearview AI, a face-tracking company based in the US, had added his biometric profile to their searchable database without his knowledge. The Clearview AI system can be used track and find persons in CCTV footage, pictures and alike – leading