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Clearview doesn't let Europeans delete themselves anymore
- HHC-Hunter 3y agoSomeone call the lawyers.
- betaby 3y agoNoncompliance is very cheap for large businesses and very expensive for individuals.
- gmerc 3y agoNot in the EU is fines based on global annual turnover
- marcinzm 3y agoGood luck getting a company with no EU presence to pay those fines.
- t0mas88 3y agoIt's still an issue as a company to have large unpaid fines in the EU. Makes it for example harder to exit, because any new parent company with an EU presence would be very careful touching this thing.
- blibble 3y agowith a capped percentage so low they'll happily gamble each time
- therealmarv 3y agoMarketgap here: Crowdfunding for sueing them. Nobody should be above the law!
- ryanisnan 3y agoI was relieved this year to learn that the Canadian government had the wisdom and prescience to ban Clearview AI from operating in British Columbia, Alberta and Québec, to stop collecting and using information on Canadians, and to delete data collected without consent. [1] https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-news/news-and-announcements/2021/an_211214/ https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-news/news-and-announcements/20... edit: Edited to indicate that this ruling does not protect all Canadians, just those in three provinces.
- hn_version_0023 3y agoHave they complied?
- ryanisnan 3y agoThis probably is the question! It looks like as of December 2021, they had not yet complied with the processing or removal of biometric data, but it looks like they had stopped collecting data. One thing to note, is that the OPC decision did not protect all Canadians, just those in British Columbia, Alberta and Québec. [1] https://mcmillan.ca/insights/clearview-ai-ordered-to-comply-with-provincial-regulators-privacy-recommendations/ https://mcmillan.ca/insights/clearview-ai-ordered-to-comply-...
- loeg 3y agoWhy only those three provinces?
- shiroiuma 3y ago>the Canadian government had the wisdom and prescience to ban Clearview AI from operating in British Columbia, Alberta and Québec, to stop collecting and using information on Canadians So the Canadian government doesn't mind them collecting and using information on Canadians if they live in Saskatchewan, the maritime provinces, or the territories? How strange. Are the people in those territories/provinces 2nd class citizens or something?
- Barrin92 3y ago
- jug 3y agoMaybe they are betting on an exception to Right to be forgotten under EU law? One such exception is research or public interest use. Their service can support law enforcement so they might think they have a case. But I dunno if they actually do…
- HDThoreaun 3y agoI think they're betting on US courts not enforcing EU laws that don't exist in the US.
- hugodan 3y agoJust like hackernews
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoThis company is one of the main reasons I don't allow anything about my kids to be posted online. I'm trying to keep them out of the wannabe right-wing dictator's databases. Which is a real shame for some family members that want to see my kids growing up. But we're the land of the free, can't regulate our brave job creators.
- ryanisnan 3y agoHow do you feel about services like Tinybeans? I can vouch for them zero, but we use them for more-or-less the same reasons. It's still "online", but probably the same degree as an iCloud photo store.
- brobinson 3y agoWannabe left-wing dictators would be okay, though?
- momirlan 3y agoof course, left-wing dictators work for the benefit of humankind
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoPoe’s law got me here again. I think you’re joking but plausibly someone could say this and not care that they used the word "dictator".
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoBoth are bad obviously but as an immigrant of color this company's links to Thiel and white nationalist networks makes me more afraid of this tool in their hands.
- cavisne 3y agoClearview was used heavily to prosecute J6 participants. I suspect their political capital is high on both side of the aisle now.
- mike_d 3y agoEuropean laws simply do not apply in the United States. The same way that as an Australian citizen you don't have to abide by a ban on e-cigarettes in Singapore even if the law is written in a way that says it applies globally. If Clearview AI has no nexus in the EU (offices, employees, customers, servers, etc) and refuses to do business in the EU they have no obligation to abide by EU laws, even if that law covers processing data internationally. Ultimately they would need to ask the US to charge or extradite the Clearview executives under US law or an international treaty.
- _AzMoo 3y ago> The same way that as an Australian citizen you don't have to abide by a ban on e-cigarettes in Singapore even if the law is written in a way that says it applies globally. What? If you're an Australian citizen you are bound by many Australian laws under the concept of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction. This is mostly used to charge for offenses around CSA, human trafficking, etc. but also applies to drug use. While it's very unlikely you'd be charged for violating laws around e-cigarettes, that doesn't mean the law doesn't apply.
- mike_d 3y agoYup. You'd be charged with the relevant Australian law by Australian authorities. I call this out in the last sentence. Article 50 of the GDPR actually acknowledges they have no enforcement authority unless they can mutual agreements with foreign states.
- oceanplexian 3y agoBut his point is there is no relevant law in Australia, so it’s unenforceable. This is how extradition works in international law. A common example I can give you is a lot of countries believe the death penalty is inhumane and it’s against basic human rights. So countries, even ones that have extradition treaties, will refuse to extradite to the US, no matter the evidence or conviction if there’s even a possibility of the death penalty. This has happened a number of times.
- 3y ago
- oakpond 3y agoI love tech in general but it's a bit disappointing to discover that perhaps its primary role in modern society is enabling mass surveillance.
- malfist 3y agoPrimary role? Tech does a lot more than that.
- atoav 3y agoSure. But does that matter if the surveilance part shifts power dynamics enough to endanger the rest?
- MichaelZuo 3y agoHow could any shifts 'endanger' electricity use, or the thousands of other major technological inventions accumulated throughout human history?
- jrflowers 3y agoThis is a good point. When has surveillances ever stopped anybody from doing anything? It’s not like imprisonment or death reduces people’s electricity use (the best known measure of technology)!
- MichaelZuo 3y agoReducing the number of users is not the same as 'endangering' the technology itself. No technology was 'endangered' by WW2. In fact, it enabled many new technologies.
- jrflowers 3y agoThis is a good point. Nobody has ever stopped doing research or developing technology because of something so petty as being surveilled, imprisoned or murdered. I applaud the confidence with which you have reached back through time and chosen world war 2 as an event wherein nothing of intellectual value was lost. To wit, survivorship bias is not a real thing, and while I’ve heard of object permanence, nobody has proven to me that my mom doesn’t cease to exist when she puts her hands in front of her face.
- gatinsama 3y agoThis should be illegal, and probably is, but it's very hard to enforce. Unless they ever want to business in Europe.
- _trampeltier 3y agoHard to enforce. Just be careful, when a companys person may travel to europe.
- justinclift 3y agoFor flagrant breaches, wonder if there's some "criminal" level charge that could be brought personally against their leadership? Therefore potentially enabling extradition?
- pc86 3y agoYou'd need to sufficiently prove they violated some roughly equal law in the home country. Murderers get extradited because murder is illegal everywhere. "He didn't delete this database column with my email address in it when I asked him to" is not getting treated seriously in any US court.
- justinclift 3y agoGood point. Something like the California "right to be forgotten" stuff may at some point be useful for it though: https://iapp.org/news/a/california-governor-signs-ca-delete-act-into-law/ https://iapp.org/news/a/california-governor-signs-ca-delete-...
- smegger001 3y agoI doubt any US court would extradite a US citizen from US territory that hasn't broken US law for breaking a European law while not in Europe. the US does seem to like countries inflicting there laws outside their own borders on US citizens unless it themselves and/or you pissed of the MPAA/RIAA first in which case you can expect the FBI to bust down you door with flimsy evidence and suspect warrant no matter the local laws anywhere in the the world (otherwise known as giving the Kim Dotcom treatment).
- harry8 3y ago[flagged]
- nightfly 3y agoLow value comment downvoted into oblivion. Nothing weak about that EDIT: It's alive again!
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoI see their point if "Just like Hacker News" is interpreted as referring to the title (replace Clearview). It’s does seem like it’s suppressing an undesired opinion even if it’s probably just because it was unsubstantive. (I personally disagree with the sentiment anyway; I suspect one could have their comments deleted if they asked the right people, especially if said comments contain personal information. hn@ycombinator.com if I’m not mistaken.)
- jodrellblank 3y agoclearview used to and now (allegedly) their lawyers are refusing. HN doesn’t gather biometrics, never offered a comment delete, hasn’t changed positions, hasn’t made any lawyer statement and doesn’t treat Europeans differently from anyone else. It’s a low quality comment in so many ways.
- codetrotter 3y ago> I suspect one could have their comments deleted if they asked the right people, especially if said comments contain personal information. hn@ycombinator.com if I’m not mistaken Ok. You’d be wrong. Last time I asked them to do that they told me that is not possible. Go ahead, send an email to them and see for yourself. HN does not yet delete your past comments for you. Even if you email them and hn@ycombinator.com and ask. See also where they say: > Can I delete my account? > We try not to delete entire account histories because that would gut the threads the account had participated in. However, we care about protecting individual users and take care of privacy requests every day, so if we can help, please email hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Which is very different from listening when you ask them to delete all of your comments.
- justinclift 3y agohttps://nitter.net/kashhill/status/1715048994223567281 https://nitter.net/kashhill/status/1715048994223567281
- lofaszvanitt 3y agoMake it available to everyone.
- jeroenhd 3y agoAmerican companies not complying with European law is quite common. That's not a problem as long as they and their owners don't care about doing business in Europe. There's not a lot Europeans can do about it, nor is there much Americans can do about European countries doing things Americans don't like. Take, for example, the copyright lobby; they'd love to take down libdvdcss so you need to pay for licensed software to play DVDs on your computer, but French law allows them to operate freely. Companies like Clearview (or YCombinator for that matter, as HN accounts can't be deleted), don't strictly need to comply with the privacy laws as long as nobody is willing to enforce them. Illegal (and unethical) as that may be, you'll have a hard time convincing any kind of European government agency to take action.
- deaddodo 3y agoThis is the thing, and the same goes in reverse. You only have to care about complying if you officially do business there (e.g., if someone buys your product from a third-party without an official relationship with you, you're generally safe). Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Ford, etc (and VW, Zeiss, etc in the inverse) comply because they themselves directly operate in foreign regions. And smaller manufacturers do because they have a relationship with a distributor.
- MightyBuzzard 3y ago[dead]
- marcus_holmes 3y agoNot always true. Kim Dotcom was extradited from New Zealand to the USA for doing things that were legal in NZ, but illegal in the USA [0]. Obviously, the lesson here is that you can be prosecuted for doing stuff that the USA doesn't like, if it's annoying a politically-connected entity enough [1]. The libdvdcss thing is probably just the French being awkward in that way they love to do; if it had been the UK they would have rolled over without a word of complaint. Europe probably has the same reach, but less inclination to do anything with it (imho). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom [1] also see Julian Assange, who at the heart of it is being imprisoned and extradited for annoying the USA.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y agoYes EU laws don't apply to USA and thank goodness for that. I have never once complied or attempted to comply with GDPR and all that nonsense. We are a sovereign nation and we are free to do what we want. If some European uses our services that is their problem.
- vore 3y agoHmm. I hope you are aware that GDPR has extraterritorial jurisdiction, enforced via any data controller or processors you are using that have a presence in the EU. Did you remember to check all your boxes there too?
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y agoYes and I have spoken to lawyers to make sure.
- ww520 3y agoGDPR only has extraterritorial jurisdiction to the processing of personal data by a controller or processor that is “established” in the EU. That means an EU based controller or processor cannot ship the data off shore and process them off shore. For a company that is not established in EU, GDPR has no jurisdiction.
- vore 3y agohttps://gdpr.eu/article-3-requirements-of-handling-personal-data-of-subjects-in-the-union/ https://gdpr.eu/article-3-requirements-of-handling-personal-... 2. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to: a. the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or b. the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union. 3. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data by a controller not established in the Union, but in a place where Member State law applies by virtue of public international law. How this is enforced this is a different question, but the GDPR explicitly spells out that the controller or processor, even if not established in the EU, is subject to GDPR if they are interacting with EU citizens.
- jokethrowaway 3y agoSo, GDPR crap for my company, but no delete requests for state surveillance? Great. Europe turning into China at rapid pace.
- bparsons 3y agoThe refusal of the US to implement basic privacy protections is harming everyone on earth.