Security News > 2020 > May > ACLU Sues Clearview AI Over Faceprint Collection, Sale

The U.S. citizens'-rights watchdog organization has filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Illinois against Clearview AI, on behalf of a number of organizations comprised of vulnerable communities-such as survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence and undocumented immigrants-for violating the the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.

Clearview has been collecting what are called "Faceprints," or unique biometric identifiers similar to someone's fingerprint or DNA profile, and then selling them to "Private companies, police, federal agencies and wealthy individuals, allowing them to secretly track and target whomever they wished using face recognition technology," ACLU Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler wrote in a blog post published Thursday.

Still, Clearview's unauthorized scraping of biometric data from photos across social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has spurred those companies to send Clearview cease-and-desist letters.

Now Clearview is facing this new legal challenge from the ACLU and the individuals represented in the Illinois case, who in their complaint argue that due to the "Immutability of our biometric information and the difficulty of completely hiding our faces in public," unfettered collection of face-recognition data "Poses severe risks to our security and privacy."

The lawsuit is not the first time a company has faced a legal challenge to faceprint-data collection by a technology company based on violation of the Illinois BIPA. Last September, a lawsuit filed against Vimeo used the same law to challenge the ad-free video platform's collection and storage of users' facial biometrics in videos and photos without their consent or knowledge.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/aclu-sues-clearview-ai-over-faceprint-collection-sale/156117/