How did Clearview AI build a face search engine, and why was it fined?

Clearview AI built a face search engine by collecting images from the Internet, including social media, into a database of more than 70 billion images, and then letting customers upload a face to find matches. Regulators in several countries fined it, and the company disputes parts of what they said.

The technology comes first. Facial recognition systems use algorithms to compare facial images to verify an identity or to identify a person from a set of known identities. Clearview's use is one-to-many identification: a search of an image against a database to see whether it matches a database ID.

Then the secrecy ended. The company operated in near secrecy until a New York Times report in January 2020. In February 2020, Google, YouTube, Facebook and Venmo sent cease and desist letters, saying scraping their sites was against their policies. Clearview's Hoan Ton-That responded that there is a First Amendment right to access public data.

The pushback followed. In Canada, where Clearview announced in July 2020 that it was leaving the market amid investigations, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said that what Clearview does is mass surveillance and is illegal. In May 2022 a settlement with the ACLU permanently prohibited Clearview from providing its database to most businesses and other private entities in the US. In September 2024 the Dutch Data Protection Authority fined it €30.5 million for what it described as an illegal database. In May 2022 the BBC reported that the UK's privacy watchdog had fined it more than £7.5m. Clearview's lawyer said the company is not subject to the regulator's jurisdiction and does no business in the UK, and the case went to appeal: on 7 October 2025 the Upper Tribunal in London decided the Information Commissioner did have jurisdiction to issue the penalty, so the appeal continues on that basis.