Individual Action
ACLU v. Clearview AI
American Civil Liberties Union, et al. v. Clearview AI, Inc.
Where it stands
Motion to dismiss denied August 2021; settlement approved May 2022 imposing a nationwide, permanent injunction on Clearview's sale of its faceprint database to most private parties.
Key ruling
Settlement (May 2022) permanently bars Clearview nationwide from selling or granting access to its faceprint database to most private companies and individuals, and bars it from selling access to any Illinois state or local government entity or private party for five years; Clearview also ended free trial accounts for individual police officers acting outside departmental authorization.
Note on this record
Cook County case number not verified; no monetary component was disclosed.The record
- Court
- Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois
- Case number
- Docket number not established
- Filed
- 2020-05-28
- Defendants
- Clearview AI, Inc.
- Plaintiffs
- Not a class action — brought by advocacy organizations on behalf of their members and constituencies (survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, undocumented immigrants, sex workers, and other vulnerable populations)
- Technology at issue
- Clearview AI faceprint database compiled from images scraped from social media and the public web
- Relief sought
- Injunctive and declaratory relief under BIPA rather than statutory damages — plaintiffs sought to stop the sale and distribution of faceprints, not the $1,000/$5,000 per-violation damages available under 740 ILCS 14/20.
- Counsel of record
- Edelson PC · ACLU of Illinois · American Civil Liberties Union
Claims pleaded
Sources (2)
- ACLU v. Clearview AIACLU of Illinois
- Clearview AI settles lawsuit over facial recognition privacyJURIST · 2022-05
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