Clearview AI—Clearview AI fined over €70 million by European regulators for illegal facial data collection under GDPR
Multiple European data protection authorities fined Clearview AI for illegal processing of biometric data under GDPR. France's CNIL fined Clearview €20 million in October 2022 and an additional €5.2 million for non-compliance in 2024. Italy's Garante fined €20 million in March 2022. The UK ICO initially fined £7.5 million (later upheld on appeal in October 2025). Greece fined €20 million. Australia found Clearview breached privacy law but imposed no fine. As of late 2025, Clearview had not paid most international fines, and noyb filed criminal charges in Austria against the company and its executives.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surveillance Technology | +toward | primary | -1.00 |
| User Privacy | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -1.360 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (critical ×2) × confidence (0.68)
Evidence (2 signals)
UK ICO fined Clearview AI £7.5M and ordered deletion of UK citizens' data
The UK Information Commissioner's Office fined Clearview AI £7,552,800 for breaching UK data protection laws by scraping images of UK residents from the web without their consent, and ordered the company to stop obtaining and using personal data of UK residents.
Italy's data protection authority fined Clearview AI €20M for GDPR violations
Italy's Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali fined Clearview AI €20 million for illegally processing biometric data of Italian citizens, ordering deletion of all Italian citizens' data and banning future collection.