The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against Clearview AI, Inc. (Clearview AI) in March 2020, alleging that it violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by capturing and using billions of individuals’ faceprints without consent. The ACLU filed suit “on behalf of groups representing survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, undocumented immigrants, current and former sex workers, and other vulnerable communities uniquely harmed by face recognition surveillance.”
According to the ACLU, as part of the settlement Clearview AI has agreed to implement certain processes so that it is “in alignment with BIPA.” Clearview AI has agreed to:
- restrict the sale of its faceprint database across the United States;
- be permanently banned, nationwide, from making its faceprint database available to most businesses and other private entities;
- cease selling access to its database to any entity in Illinois, including law enforcement, for five years;
- maintain an opt-out request form on its website;
- end its practice of offering free trial accounts to individual police officers; and continue to filter out photographs that were taken or uploaded in Illinois for the next five years.