Clearview AI Fined £7.5 Million by British Data Protection Watchdog for Illegally Storing Images

Hoan Ton-That, CEO of Clearview AI, demonstrates the company's facial recognition software using a photo of himself in New York on Feb. 22, 2022. The Canadian Press/AP-Seth Wenig

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has handed a large fine to the facial recognition company Clearview AI for using images of UK people scraped from the web and social media to create a gigantic search engine for faces.

The ICO fined the facial recognition company £7.5 million ($9.4 million), calling its methods to grow its global online database “unacceptable.”