UK watchdog fines facial recognition firm £7.5m over image collection

The UK's data watchdog has fined a facial recognition company £7.5m for collecting images of people from social media platforms and the web to add to a global database. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) also ordered US-based Clearview AI to delete the data of UK residents from its systems. Clearview AI has collected more than 20bn images of people's faces from Facebook, other social media companies and from scouring the web. John Edwards, the UK information commissioner, said Clearview's business model was unacceptable. "Clearview AI Inc has collected multiple images of people all over the world, including in the UK, from a variety of websites and social media platforms, creating a database with more than 20bn images," he said. "The company not only enables identification of those people, but effectively monitors their behaviour and offers it as a commercial service.