Regulator action · 3 September 2024
Dutch DPA decision on Clearview AI
Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, decision announced 3 September 2024 · Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (Netherlands)
What it means for your code
Scraping images to train or run face recognition is special-category biometric processing; public availability of the photos is no legal basis.
What happened
Clearview AI scraped billions of facial images from the internet to build a facial-recognition database sold to law enforcement.
What was decided
Building a biometric database from scraped photos without a legal basis, and failing to inform people, is an unlawful processing of special-category data.
⚖ EUR 30.5 million administrative fine
The legal test applied
- Biometric data used for unique identification is special-category data requiring an Art. 9 exception
- Public availability of photos is not a legal basis for biometric processing
- People must be informed and able to exercise access rights
Summary and analysis by Lawpatch, checked by an editor against the source. Risk analysis, not legal advice; the law may have moved on since this decision.