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Italian DPA fines Clearview AI for illegally monitoring and processing biometric data of Italian citizens

Laura Carrer, Research and Advocacy at Digital Rights Unit, Hermes Center & Riccardo Coluccini, Reclaim Your Face national campaign contributor

On 9 March 2022 the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) fined the US-based company Clearview AI EUR 20 million after finding that the company monitored and processed biometric data of individuals on Italian territory without a legal basis.

The company reportedly owns a database including over 10 billion facial images which are scraped from public web sources such as websites, social media, online videos. It offers a sophisticated search service which creates profiles on the basis of the biometric data extracted from the image.

The fine is the highest expected according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and it was motivated by a complaint sent by the Hermes Centre in May 2021 in a joint action with EDRi members Privacy International, noyb, and Homo Digitalis—in addition to complaints sent by some individuals and to a series of investigations launched in the wake of the 2020 revelations of Clearview AI business practices.

In addition to the fine, the Italian DPA ordered the company to delete personal and biometric data relating to individuals from Italy, to stop any further processing of data belonging to Italian people, and to designate a representative in the EU. Pictures were analysed by the facial recognition algorithm created by Clearview AI to build up a gigantic database of biometric data and access to the same database was sold to law enforcement agencies. The company also extracts any associated metadata from the image: title of the image or webpage, geolocation, date of birth, source link, nationality, gender.

According to the Italian DPA, biometric and personal data were processed unlawfully without an appropriate legal basis, the company failed to adequately inform people of how their images were collected and analysed, and processed people’s data for purposes other than those for which they had been made available online. In fact, a line of argument of Clearview AI was to equate themself to Google Search for faces. However, the DPA stated that, by selling access to a database and a proprietary face matching algorithm intended for certain categories of customers, “Clearview has specific characteristics that differentiate it from a common search engine that does not process or enrich images on the web […] creates a database of image snapshots that are stored as present at the time of collection and not updated.”

In addition, the DPA highlights that “the company’s legitimate interest in free economic initiative cannot but be subordinate to the rights and freedoms of the persons concerned.”

At the moment Clearview has 30 days to communicate to the Italian DPA what measures they are adopting and up to 60 days to either pay the fine or appeal to a court.

This decision is an other step in the right direction to ban all sorts of biometric surveillance practices that, as higlighted by EDRi-led campaign Reclaim Your Face, have a huge impact on fundamental human rights.


Further reading:

Italian DPA decision on Clearview AI (in Italian): https://www.garanteprivacy.it/web/guest/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9751362

Hermes Center press release on fine to Clearview AI: https://www.hermescenter.org/clearview-ai-ha-monitorato-i-cittadini-italiani-garante-privacy-illegale/

Challenge against Clearview AI in Europe: https://privacyinternational.org/legal-action/challenge-against-clearview-ai-europe



ReclaimYourFace is a movement led by civil society organisations across Europe:

Access Now ARTICLE19 Bits of Freedom CCC Defesa dos Direitos Digitais (D3) Digitalcourage Digitale Gesellschaft CH Digitale Gesellschaft DE Državljan D EDRi Electronic Frontier Finland epicenter.works Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights Homo Digitalis IT-Political Association of Denmark IuRe La Quadrature du Net Liberties Metamorphosis Foundation Panoptykon Foundation Privacy International SHARE Foundation
In collaboration with our campaign partners:

AlgorithmWatch AlgorithmWatch/CH All Out Amnesty International Anna Elbe Aquilenet Associazione Luca Coscioni Ban Facial Recognition Europe Big Brother Watch Certi Diritti Chaos Computer Club Lëtzebuerg (C3L) CILD D64 Danes je nov dan Datapanik Digitale Freiheit DPO Innovation Electronic Frontier Norway European Center for Not-for-profit Law (ECNL) European Digital Society Eumans Football Supporters Europe Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG) Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung Germanwatch German acm chapter Gesellschaft Fur Informatik (German Informatics Society) GONG Hellenic Association of Data Protection and Privacy Hellenic League for Human Rights info.nodes irish council for civil liberties JEF, Young European Federalists Kameras Stoppen Ligue des droits de L'Homme (FR) Ligue des Droits Humains (BE) LOAD e.V. Ministry of Privacy Privacy first logo Privacy Lx Privacy Network Projetto Winston Smith Reporters United Saplinq Science for Democracy Selbstbestimmt.Digital STRALI Stop Wapenhandel The Good Lobby Italia UNI-Europa Unsurv Vrijbit Wikimedia FR Xnet


Reclaim Your Face is also supported by:

Jusos Piratenpartei DE Pirátská Strana

MEP Patrick Breyer, Germany, Greens/EFA
MEP Marcel Kolaja, Czechia, Greens/EFA
MEP Anne-Sophie Pelletier, France, The Left
MEP Kateřina Konečná, Czechia, The Left



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