Dutch watchdog levies fine on Clearview over 'illegal database' of faces

The Dutch data protection watchdog has issued facial recognition startup Clearview with a fine of $33.7 million over its creation of what the agency called an “illegal database” of billions of photos of faces.

The Netherlands' Data Protection Agency, or DPA, also warned Dutch companies that using Clearview's services is also banned.

The New York-based company didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The data agency said that Clearview “has not objected to this decision and is therefore unable to appeal against the fine.”

The agency said that building the database and insufficiently informing people whose images appear in the database amounted to serious breaches of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.

“Facial recognition is a highly intrusive technology, that you cannot simply unleash on anyone in the world,” DPA chairman Aleid Wolfsen said in a statement.

“If there is a photo of you on the Internet — and doesn’t that apply to all of us? — then you can end up in the database of Clearview and be tracked. This is not a doom scenario from a scary film,” he said.

DPA said that if Clearview doesn't halt the breaches of the regulation, it faces noncompliance penalties of up to $5.6 million on top of the fine.

In June, Clearview settled an Illinois lawsuit alleging its massive photographic collection of faces violated the subjects’ privacy rights, a deal that attorneys estimate could be worth more than $50 million. Clearview didn't admit any liability as part of the settlement agreement.

The case in Illinois consolidated lawsuits from around the US filed against Clearview, which pulled photos from social media and elsewhere on the internet to create a database that it sold to businesses, individuals and government entities.