EU privacy groups set sights on facial recognition firm

Clearview AI's use facial recognition technology faces criticism from EU privacy groups, which argue it is open to abuse. — 123rf

Privacy organisations on Thursday complained to regulators in five European countries over the practices of Clearview AI, a company that has built a powerful facial recognition database using images "scraped" from the web.

Clearview's use of images — including those from people's social media accounts — to offer biometrics services to private companies and law enforcement "goes far beyond what we could ever expect as online users," Ioannis Kouvakas, legal officer at Privacy International, said in a statement.