French privacy watchdog fines Clearview AI for 20 million euros

French privacy regulator la Commission nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) has fined Clearview AI €20 million. The American software company processes photos of French citizens without legal permission, the CNIL ruled.

In addition to paying the fine, Clearview must delete all affected photos and data in its system, writes the supervisor. CNIL says there are “very serious risks to the fundamental rights of data subjects and gives the company two months to comply with the requirement.” Otherwise, it will be fined 100,000 euros per day.

Last year, the CNIL ordered the software company to stop collecting photos of French citizens. According to the regulator, Clearview AI has two articles of the GDPR violate. The first is the illegal processing of personal data under Article 6, the second is not requesting permission to collect the data, a violation of Articles 12, 15 and 17.

Clearview AI allows users to upload a photo of someone, after which the software searches for the most similar face from the more than three billion people in the database and where it found that photo. For example, users can identify people on the basis of a photo in a relatively simple way.

The French fine is not the first European fine to be imposed on Clearview AI. The Italian privacy regulator fined the company 20 million euros in March. Fines from the British and Greek privacy watchdogs followed later.