Clearview AI settles lawsuit

Clearview AI, a facial-recognition software maker, on Monday settled a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and agreed to limit its face database in the United States primarily to government agencies and not allow most American companies to have access to it.

Under the settlement, which was filed with an Illinois state court, Clearview will not sell its database of what it said were more than 20 billion facial photos to most private individuals and businesses in the country. But the company can largely still sell that database to federal and state agencies.

The agreement is the latest blow to the New York-based startup, which built its facial recognition software by scraping photos from the web and popular sites, such as Facebook, Linkedin and Instagram.

Clearview then sold its software to local police departments and government agencies, including the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But its technology has been deemed illegal in Canada, Australia and parts of Europe for violating privacy laws.

Clearview also faces a provisional $22.6 million fine in Britain, as well as a fine of 20 million euros from Italy’s dataprotection agency.