Canadian Privacy Commission Says Clearview's App Is Illegal, Tells It To Pack Its Things And Leave
Clearview AI faces significant backlash from Canadian regulators for violating privacy laws by utilizing scraped personal data without consent. The national privacy commissioner explicitly labeled the company’s practices as mass surveillance, arguing that information harvested from public sources for unrelated commercial and law enforcement purposes does not qualify as publicly available data. This finding concludes a yearlong investigation, establishing that the company’s fundamental business model is illegal under Canadian jurisdiction. The technology’s impact on civil liberties is profound, as it allows police agencies to conduct thousands of searches, effectively placing citizens in a perpetual police lineup. While Clearview attempts to justify its operations by comparing itself to tech giants like Google, it ignores the critical distinction that Clearview specifically sells access to law enforcement for surveillance. The ease with which agencies use trial accounts to scan images of friends and family highlights the pervasive and unchecked nature of this biometric data harvesting, raising serious ethical questions about consent and surveillance in public spaces. This conflict is crucial for the open data community because it highlights the tension between data accessibility and individual privacy rights. It demonstrates that simply being publicly available on the web does not negate the need for consent when that data is repurposed for invasive surveillance. As legal precedents solidify, this case serves as a warning that open data ecosystems must rigorously address how personal information is scraped and used. It underscores the necessity for clear governance frameworks that protect individuals from having their biometric data exploited without their knowledge or permission.
Source: techdirt.comPublished on 2023-05-14