(Bloomberg) -- Australian and British privacy regulators opened a joint probe into Clearview AI Inc., saying they want to examine how the company's facial-recognition technology uses people's data, just days after the company suspended operations in Canada.
The Australian Information Commissioner and the U.K. Information Commissioner's Office said they will focus on the company's use of “scraped” data and biometrics of individuals.
Clearview is facing growing scrutiny of the billions of images it has scraped from social media platforms and how the New York-based company shares those with law enforcement agencies. It suspended a contract with its last Canadian client, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, after regulators there said they were investigating allegations Clearview collected personal information without consent and shared it with police.
Clearview will cooperate with the U.K. and Australian regulators, Chief Executive Officer Hoan Ton-That said in a statement. The company searches publicly available photos from the Internet in accordance with applicable laws, he said. “Individuals in these countries can opt-out.”
Read more: Why Tech Firms Want (Some) Facial Recognition Rules: QuickTake
U.S. lawmakers are drafting new legislation to curtail the use of facial recognition by law enforcement and government agencies, harnessing the recent demonstrations and public outrage over police misconduct and racial inequality.
Regulators in Europe, where privacy rules are stricter, are developing tougher rules on artificial intelligence companies to ensure individual rights aren't abused.
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