Italy's data privacy watchdog said it will fine the controversial facial recognition firm Clearview AI for breaching EU law. An investigation by Garante, Italy's data protection authority, found that the company's database of 10 billion images of faces includes those of Italians and residents in Italy. The New York City-based firm is being fined €20 million, and will also have to delete any facial biometrics it holds of Italian nationals. This isn't the first time that the beleaguered facial recognition tech company is facing legal consequences. The UK data protection authority last November fined the company £17 million after finding its practices--which include collecting selfies of people without their consent from security camera footage or mugshots--violate the nation's data protection laws.

Clearview AI has announced it aims to put almost every human's face in its facial recognition database, making'almost everyone in the world will be identifiable' A controversial AI company has announced it aims to put an image of nearly every human face in its facial recognition database, making it possible for'almost everyone in the world [to] be identifiable.' In its latest report in December, facial recognition firm Clearview AI told investors that the company is currently collecting 100 billion photos of human faces for the unprecedented campaign, which will be stored in its dedicated database. The collection of images - approximately 14 photos for each of the 7 billion people on the entire planet, scraped from social media and other sources - would extensively bolster the company's extensive surveillance system, already the most elaborate of its kind. The American company headquartered in Manhattan further told investors that its'index of faces' has grown from 3 billion images to more than 10 billion since the start of 2020. The firm's technology has already been used by myriad law enforcement and government agencies around the world, helping police make thousands of arrests by aiding in various criminal investigations.

A man taking a selfie is silhouetted against the overcast sky along the Chicago skyline Wednesday, July 21, 2021, in Chicago. Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition company that scrapes public images from social media to aid law enforcement probes, has subpoenaed internal documents from some of the groups that first exposed its activities. The firm served subpoenas in August to civil society coalition Open The Government, its policy analyst Freddy Martinez and the police accountability nonprofit that he'd previously founded, Lucy Parsons Labs -- demanding any correspondence they'd had with journalists about Clearview and its leaders, as well as information they'd uncovered about the company and its founders in public records requests, over the last four years. The subpoenas, obtained by POLITICO, could draw the groups into lengthy court battles and, they argue, dissuade others from taking on Clearview or other companies working on potentially problematic technologies.

Clearview AI, an artificial intelligence firm providing facial recognition technology to US law enforcement, may be overstating how effective its services are in catching terrorist suspects and preventing attacks, according to a report from BuzzFeed News. The company, which gained widespread recognition from a New York Times story published earlier this month, claims it was instrumental in identifying a New York suspect from video footage who had placed three rice cookers disguised as explosive devices around New York City last August, creating panic and setting off a citywide manhunt. BuzzFeed News found via a public records request that Clearview AI has been claiming in promotional material that law enforcement linked the suspect to an online profile in only five seconds using its database. But city police now say this is simply false. "The NYPD did not use Clearview technology to identify the suspect in the August 16th rice cooker incident," an NYPD spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.