The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has announced it will cease its pursuit of Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition company, despite lingering questions about the company’s compliance with previous rulings.
In 2021, the OAIC found Clearview AI in breach of Australians’ privacy by collecting facial images without consent. Clearview AI claims to have a database of over 50 billion faces scraped from the internet. As such, the company was ordered to stop collecting images and delete existing ones within 90 days. However, there’s no indication that Clearview had complied with this order.
Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind stated that after extensive consideration, the OAIC decided not to invest further resources in scrutinising Clearview AI. This decision comes despite the company’s involvement in regulatory investigations in multiple jurisdictions and. In the US, the company recently agreed to resolve a class action suit and reached a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union, restricting its ability to sell its database to most American businesses.
The OAIC, along with other regulators, has called on publicly available websites to take reasonable steps to protect personal information from unlawful scraping. Commissioner Kind emphasised that all entities in Australia using AI to handle personal information must comply with the Privacy Act.
As AI technologies continue to evolve, the OAIC plans to issue guidance for entities developing and using AI models, including how Australian privacy principles apply to the collection and use of personal information.
For a full reading of the media release, see here.
