US facial recognition service Clearview AI has been fined €30.5 million by the Dutch privacy regulator after the company created an illegal database containing billions of photos.

Clearview AI proposes a service that allows the recognition of a person from their photo. This software is used by law enforcement in the United States and other countries.

The American start-up has also been fined €20m in France and the UK.

In Italy she was fined €8.85 million.

Illegally owns millions of photos of Dutch people

“Clearview has for this purpose a database which contains more than 30 billion photos of people (…) without these people’s knowledge and without their permission,” according to a statement from the Dutch regulatory authority.

Photos of Dutch people are found in this illegal database, the authority clarified.

The Dutch data protection authority (AP) has announced that it is consequently fining Clearview AI €30.5 million. It ordered an end to these violations and threatened Clearview with a penalty clause of up to €5.1 million in addition to the fine.

“Facial recognition is a very radical technology that we just can’t make accessible to everyone,” AP President Aleid Wolfsen said in a statement.

Clearview maintains that it only provides services to intelligence and investigative services outside the European Union.

“It’s very serious,” Wolfsen said. “We have to draw a very clear line when it comes to misuse of this type of technology.”

Facial recognition can help with security and law enforcement investigations of criminals, he admits. But “certainly” it should not be managed by “a commercial company”.

“Clearview is breaking the law and using Clearview’s services is therefore illegal,” it also warned.

“Dutch organizations using Clearview can therefore expect heavy fines.”