Canadian Watchdogs Declare Clearview AI Facial Recognition Illegal
Four Canadian privacy commissioners find that Clearview AI violates privacy laws by scraping billions of photos, including those of children, without consent.
Four Canadian privacy commissioners declare that American technology company Clearview AI violates Canadian privacy laws by scraping photos of citizens without their knowledge or consent. The investigators find that the company builds a massive database of over three billion images, which includes pictures of Canadians and children, to power its facial recognition software.
Federal Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien states that Clearview AI engages in illegal mass surveillance that treats all members of society as if they are in a perpetual police lineup. The commissioners highlight that this technology creates a significant risk to individuals by allowing law enforcement and private companies to easily match faces against this unauthorized biometric database.
The privacy watchdogs call on federal and provincial governments to strengthen privacy legislation to prevent this type of unauthorized data collection. They express deep concern over a private entity profiting from the sale of such vast amounts of personal biometric data without any regard for individual privacy rights.