European privacy groups challenge facial scan firm Clearview

Privacy campaign groups filed a slew of legal complaints Thursday with European regulators against Clearview AI

LONDON -- Privacy campaign groups filed legal complaints Thursday with European regulators against Clearview AI, alleging the facial recognition technology it provides to law enforcement agencies and businesses breaches stringent European Union privacy rules. Four privacy campaign groups complained to data protection authorities in France, Austria, Greece, Italy and the U.K. about Clearview's practices. They say the company stockpiled biometric data on more than 3 billion people without their knowledge or permission by “scraping" their images from websites. The complaints say Clearview didn't have any legal basis to collect and process this data under the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which covers facial image data. Britain adopted its own version of the EU privacy rules after it left the bloc. New York-based Clearview didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.