This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I'm not saying they're in the right, but once you put stuff on the internet it's near impossible to stop people doing what they want with it
That's only true for people who don't care about operating lawfully. A big company cannot practically afford to do the same things as some random fly under the radar niche community.
That being said, this is a US company, so that may be a problem.
Maybe they shouldn't have left the EU.
How would that affect a US company? Did you read the article or just kneejerk a brexit snark for internet points?
The ICO failed “not because this isn't monitoring and not because in other circumstances, this might not be in breach of U.K. GDPR, but because it's foreign law enforcement. It's outside of the scope of European Union law so it doesn't apply,” said James Moss, privacy and data protection partner at the law firm Bird & Bird.
The EU has enough power to actually stand up to US companies. See: https://www.barrons.com/news/eu-bans-meta-s-use-of-personal-data-for-behavioural-advertising-fe6bcfbd
Yes in the EU. Fuck all out if it. This company was not operating in Europe. The internet isn't in Europe
Why are you white knighting for big US companies? They don't even know who you are outside of a personal identification number.
I'm not... Just replying to EU supremacists who think their laws rule the world, they don't.
And who haven't read the fucking article which clearly says other EU countries have tried taking them to court, so the fucking moron who said it wouldn't have happened if the UK hadn't left the EU is clearly talking shite, as are all the other fucking morons who upvoted them without reading it.
[End rant]
EU laws apply to EU citizens, even on the internet. EU laws therefore tend to have surprisingly global effects, often called the 'Brussels Effect'.
A US company harvesting data from EU citizens is subject to EU laws and can be fined for breaking them accordingly, for example.
The Brussels effect is a book.
Are you saying the lawyer who specialises in data and privacy is wrong?
The company was working for a foreign government, not commercially
You could like, read the article?
Please read beyond the first Google result that you find: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
What a UK court has ruled based on EU law is not necessarily what an EU court would rule. They may well state that Clearview is a commercial partner of foreign law enforcement and therefore not protected (because it's not the foreign law enforcement itself doing the data harvesting, but a commercial firm intending to make money).
Besides, the UK court clearly ruled that the law did apply, but that Clearview wasn't in breach. This wasn't a jurisdiction issue, as you asserted initially.
Yes, not in breach. The UK laws have not been changed since brexit. Start dealing in facts, not some conceptual Brussels effect which isn't real other than REACH. The California effect is much larger.
The EU court can decide whatever the fuck it likes, it still has zero jurisdiction outside the EU.
Also, read the FUCKING article, the French also brought a case...
I'm not talking about who is in breach or not, I argued about the jurisdiction of the court, which they ruled that the law does apply to Clearview (even if it wasn't breached). It's literally in the article, maybe you should read it?
Also, foreign companies saving any data on EU citizens who reside in the EU are subject to the GDPR, see this webpage set up by lawyers who actually know about this stuff:
"The law is structured in this manner so that it can safeguard the data and privacy rights of all internet users in the EU, regardless of where they browse online or purchase. Therefore, if you conduct business with EU citizens, you must comply with GDPR." https://reciprocity.com/resource-center/guide-to-gdpr-compliance-for-us-companies/#:~:text=The%20law%20is%20structured%20in%20this%20manner%20so%20that%20it%20can%20safeguard%20the%20data%20and%20privacy%20rights%20of%20all%20internet%20users%20in%20the%20EU%2C%20regardless%20of%20where%20they%20browse%20online%20or%20purchase.%20Therefore%2C%20if%20you%20conduct%20business%20with%20EU%20citizens%2C%20you%20must%20comply%20with%20GDPR.
And the French also brought a case, precisely because the law does apply and they have jurisdiction. So thanks for proving my point I guess?
Therefore, if you conduct business with EU citizens, you must comply with GDPR."
They weren't conducting business, as the article says. If they were, the law, in the UK, which hasn't changed, would apply. But they weren't.
Collecting personal data from EU citizens whilst they are in the EU is doing business in the EU, which is why the court ruled the law did apply. Did you read the article?
Clearview was not fined specifically because of a provision in that same law that says such data collection is permitted if they were doing this business on behalf of foreign law enforcement. So the UK court ruled the law does apply, but that Clearview wasn't in breach. The UK court used EU law to determine Clearview was not in breach of EU law. The fine was not removed because Clearview is outside of their jurisdiction, which they're simply not.
The judgment, issued by the three-member tribunal at the First-tier Tribunal, agreed with Clearview’s assertion that the ICO lacked jurisdiction in the case because the data processing in question was carried out on behalf of foreign government agencies.
Yeah, I'm going to take the judgement as the truth over your opinion of a fictional ECJ judgement,, especially as the UK GDPR law is exactly the same as the EU one.
Please provide a link that shows otherwise
I think I understand your confusion now.
For starters, we're talking about the exact same ruling. And I think the snippet you posted will help me explain the issue.
GDPR is an EU law. It applies to all companies collecting data on EU citizens. If a company does, it falls under the jurisdiction of the GDPR and European (member state) courts (in this case a UK court). The UK court clearly held that it has jurisdiction, and could apply a penalty if Clearview were to be in breach of the law.
However, the court is not normally the one to hand out these fines. Instead, that is delegated to each country's data protection agency, which in the UKs case is the ICO. Now, the exact conditions under which the ICO is allowed to fine a company is defined in the GDPR. It defines the jurisdiction of the data protection agencies.
One of those conditions states that the ICO is not to have jurisdiction over data collection done for foreign law enforcement (that's usually covered by international treaties instead). The ICO for example can't fine the FBI or NSA or something.
In the case of Clearview, the ICO argued that sinced Clearview is a private company, they were not covered by this exclusion. Clearview argues that the sole purpose of the data collection is for foreign law enforcement, so that they are covered by that exclusion. Note that Clearview didn't argue that they can't be fined because they're not an EU company.
The court has ruled that yes, the GDPR applies to Clearview, but also that Clearview is covered by the exclusion outlined in the GDPR for foreign law enforcement, and thus that the ICO does not have the jurisdiction to fine them (again, note the difference between the jurisdiction of the law/court and that of the ICO). So GDPR applies, but Clearview is not in breach.
Hypothetically, had Clearview sold this data to other private companies instead of law enforcement agencies, then Clearview could not have argued that they were covered by the GDPR exemption, and thus the court would have ruled that the ICO does have the jurisdiction to fine them.
So in conclusion:
I hope this makes a bit more sense now.
Ok, I think I get where you are coming from, but your conclusion still doesn't argue the original point imo.
The GDPR law on the UK statute books is the exact same law as the EU one, it has not been amended. It's just that the ECJ is no longer the highest court. The UK supreme court is again supreme following brexit.
Please provide an example of where the EU has taken action successfully against a conpany that has no base in the EU though. I've not seen anything like that bef
The original point was that the UK was somehow in a worse position because of brexit, this is not true. The UK is no weaker legally because of exiting the EU. The law is identical.
Finding examples is difficult, as most articles tend to be about the big tech companies that have bases globally. But I can point you towards the legal mechanism the EU uses in the case of the US, which is the EU-US Data Protection Umbrella agreement, see here: "Law enforcement cooperation: EU-US Umbrella Agreement" https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection/eu-us-data-transfers_en#:~:text=Law%20enforcement%20cooperation%3A%20EU%2DUS%20Umbrella%20Agreement
This is an international agreement between the EU and the US. When the UK Brexited, I believe (but not 100% sure) they were no longer part of that agreement, meaning the UK lost the ability to efficiently go after companies without a base in the UK even if the law remained identical.
Ah ok. Yeah they just did a thing to replicate it recently. Not sure if that means there was a period when that ability was lost though
https://dpnetwork.org.uk/international-data-transfers-data-bridge
No, but the internet in Europe is regulated by the EU. If that company wants to use it, they will be subjected to its laws or they will be blocked and fined.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
LONDON — Britain’s top privacy regulator has no power to sanction an American-based AI firm which harvested vast numbers of personal photos for its facial recognition software without users' consent, a judge has ruled.
The New York Times reported in 2020 that Clearview AI had harvested billions of social media images without users’ consent.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) took action against Clearview last year, alleging it had unlawfully collected the data of British subjects for behavior-monitoring purposes.
Lawyers have pointed out that the company was under no obligation to purge Brits’ pictures from its database until the appeal was determined — and yesterday’s ruling applied not only to the fine, but the deletion order too.
The identity-matching technology, trained on photos scraped without permission from social media platforms and other internet sites, was initially made available to a range of business users as well as law enforcement bodies.
Following a 2020 lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, the company now only offers its services to federal agencies and law enforcement in the U.S. Yesterday’s judgment revealed it also has clients in Panama, Brazil, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.
The original article contains 627 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
What? Someone downloaded photos that people willingly uploaded to a public network? You don’t say.
