Australia Calls Off Clearview AI Investigation

Australia’s information watchdog is to halt investigations on Clearview AI’s allegedly unlawful use of facial recognition technology to collect facial images and biometric templates from Australian residents.

In a public statement published by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) on August 21, Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind said that the probe started in 2021 over Clearview AI’s potential breach of the country’s Privacy Act will be discontinued.

This decision was made despite the firm never showing it was compliant. Digital rights activists have called for more scrutiny over such practices.

OAIC’s Investigation of Clearview AI

Australia’s OAIC opened a determination under Article s 52(1A) of the Privacy Act in October 2021 after determining that the US firm breached Australia’s privacy law by scraping Australian individuals’ biometric information from the web without their consent and disclosing it through a facial recognition tool.

“In the determination, the Australian Information Commissioner made several declarations, including for the organization to cease collecting images from individuals in Australia,” noted the OAIC in its public statement.

Read more: ChatGPT’s Data-Scraping Model Under Scrutiny From Privacy Experts

The next month, Clearview appealed against the decision to Australia’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). However, the firm ceased its appeal three years later, in August 2024, before the AAT could make a ruling.

OAIC’s Initial Determination Against Clearview AI “Still Stands”

In its August 21 statement, Privacy Commissioner Kind said, “Considering all the relevant factors, I am not satisfied that further action is warranted in the particular case of Clearview AI at this time.”

However, she also said that the practices engaged in by Clearview AI at the time of the determination were troubling and that the initial determination against Clearview AI “still stands.”

“Clearview AI must not collect images from individuals in Australia and must delete all images it had previously collected from individuals in Australia.”

This decision prompted digital advocates and NGOs to call for more scrutiny of such data collection practices.

David Shoebridge, an Australian Greens senator and digital rights spokesperson, said, “The suspicion that Clearview AI has continued to scrape individuals’ photos absolutely warrants further investigation and it is heartening that the OAIC is confirming that they have heard these community concerns.”

Kind also highlighted that such practices “are increasingly common due to the drive towards the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models.”

In August 2023, the OAIC co-signed with 11 other data protection regulators a joint statement on the need to address data scraping, articulating in particular the obligations on social media platforms and publicly accessible sites to take reasonable steps to protect personal information that is on their sites from unlawful data scraping.

The Australian watchdog will also issue additional guidance for entities seeking to develop and train generative AI models while complying with the country’s privacy laws.

Clearview AI Under Scrutiny in the UK and the US

Clearview AI has been involved in several litigations across the world.

In 2021, at the same time as the OAIC announced it was investigating the US firm, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it was “considering its next steps and any formal regulatory action [against Clearview AI] that may be appropriate under the UK data protection laws.”

A few months later, the ICO fined Clearview AI £7.5m ($9.8m) for collecting UK citizens’ data.

In 2022, a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) prevented Clearview AI from selling its facial recognition database to most US businesses and all Illinois entities, including law enforcement, for a five-year period.

In June 2024, Clearview AI agreed to resolve a class action lawsuit in the US. It was accused of violating the privacy of American residents. The settlement has yet to be approved by the court.