Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens — Clearview AI Inc.
The Dutch DPA fined Clearview AI €30.5 million for illegally collecting and processing biometric data (facial images) of Dutch citizens for facial recognition purposes without a legal basis, and for failing to comply with data access requests.
Key takeaway — how to prevent this
Biometric data (faces, iris, fingerprints) needs an explicit lawful basis or consent. Scraping or capturing it without one is unlawful across the EU/UK and many US states (e.g. Illinois BIPA) — and draws the largest fines.
Case brief
Read from the authority's press release on 2026-09-18. Every holding carries a short verbatim quote from that text.
- Decided by
- Dutch Data Protection Authority
- Parties
- Dutch Data Protection Authority v. Clearview AI
- Remedy
- Clearview AI was fined 30.5 million euro and ordered to stop violations under threat of penalties for non-compliance up to a maximum of 5.1 million euro.
- Amount
- €30,500,000
- Appeal
- No appeal
Key holdings
The Dutch DPA imposed a fine of 30.5 million euro on Clearview AI and issued orders subject to non-compliance penalties of up to more than 5 million euro.
“The Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) imposes a fine of 30.5 million euro and orders subject to a penalty for non-compliance up to more than 5 million euro” — paragraph 1
Clearview severely violated the GDPR by illegally creating a facial recognition database and maintaining insufficient transparency with individuals.
“Clearview has seriously violated the privacy law General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on several points: the company should never have built the database and is insufficiently transparent.” — heading Violations by Clearview
Because Clearview operates illegally, using its facial recognition services is also illegal and subjects users to fines.
“Clearview breaks the law, and this makes using the services of Clearview illegal.” — heading Services of Clearview illegal
Clearview failed to lodge an objection against the enforcement decision, forfeiting its ability to appeal the fine.
“Clearview has not objected to this decision and is therefore unable to appeal against the fine.” — paragraph 12
In plain English
The Dutch Data Protection Authority imposed a fine of 30.5 million euro on Clearview AI, an American company offering facial recognition services. Clearview built a database containing more than 30 billion automatically scraped photos of people, including Dutch residents, converting their faces into unique biometric facial codes without their knowledge or consent. The regulator found that Clearview seriously violated data protection laws by creating this database without statutory authorization and failing to be transparent with affected individuals or cooperate with access requests. The authority warned that using Clearview's services is illegal and that Dutch organizations using them can expect heavy fines. Because Clearview did not cease its violations after the investigation, the regulator also ordered the company to stop or face additional penalties for non-compliance totaling a maximum of 5.1 million euro. Clearview did not object to the decision and cannot appeal the fine. Furthermore, because Clearview has no European establishment and has ignored previous fines from other authorities, the Dutch regulator is investigating whether company directors can be held personally liable and fined for directing these violations.
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