Facial recognition company Clearview AI agrees to restrict sale of database in settlement

Facial recognition startup Clearview AI has agreed to restrict the sale of its massive collection of face images to settle allegations that it collected people's photos without their consent.The settlement was reached in a case alleging the company violated Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), considered the strongest data privacy law in the country.

The company in a legal filing Monday agreed to permanently stop selling access to its face database to private businesses or individuals around the U.S., putting a limit on what it can do with its ever-growing trove of billions of images pulled from social media and elsewhere on the internet.

The settlement — which must be approved by a county judge in Chicago — will end a 2-year-old lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups over alleged violations of an Illinois digital privacy law, known as the Biometric Information Privacy Act.