Privacy Commissioners v Clearview AI (Canada)

4

Commissioners in the joint investigation

OPC findings 2021-001

3

Binding provincial orders, December 2021

CAI, OIPC BC, OIPC Alberta

0

Financial penalty (none available under PIPEDA at the time)

PIPEDA

What happened?

After reports in January 2020 that Canadian police forces, including the RCMP, had used Clearview AI, the federal Privacy Commissioner and three provincial commissioners opened a joint investigation. Clearview withdrew from the Canadian market in July 2020 but refused to delete Canadians' images. The joint report of findings, published on 2 February 2021, concluded that Clearview had engaged in mass surveillance: it collected biometric data without consent for purposes a reasonable person would not consider appropriate, breaching PIPEDA and the Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta private-sector laws.

1. 2020-02-21

   Joint investigation opened

   Four commissioners announce an inquiry into Clearview.

2. 2020-07-06

   Clearview leaves Canada

   The company stops offering its service to Canadian clients.

3. 2021-02-02

   Joint findings

   Collection found unlawful; Clearview rejects the recommendations.

4. 2021-12-14

   Provincial orders

   Quebec, BC and Alberta order Clearview to stop collecting, stop using and delete.

5. 2023-12

   BC judicial review

   BC Supreme Court upholds the BC order.

6. 2025

   BC Court of Appeal

   Clearview's appeal dismissed; order stands.

What did the commissioners decide?

• Consent was required and absent: public posting of a photograph is not consent to its use in a face recognition index.
• The purpose was inappropriate: indexing faces of millions of people, including children, to sell searches is not a purpose a reasonable person would accept.
• Clearview's position that it was outside Canadian jurisdiction was rejected because it collected Canadians' data and marketed to Canadian clients.
• The federal Commissioner could only recommend; the provincial commissioners issued binding orders on 14 December 2021 (Alberta Order P2021-12 is dated 7 December 2021).

Why does it matter for face search?

The findings set the Canadian standard that a face vector is biometric information needing express consent, and that scraping public pages for faces is an inappropriate purpose in itself. The RCMP was separately found to have breached the Privacy Act by using Clearview. The British Columbia litigation is the only Canadian court test of a commissioner's order against a face index, and Clearview lost at both levels.

What happened next?

Clearview sought judicial review of the British Columbia order; the BC Supreme Court upheld it in December 2023 and the Court of Appeal dismissed Clearview's appeal in 2025. Quebec's Law 25 and the proposed federal reforms (see PIPEDA) added penalty powers that did not exist when the findings were made. A proposed class action against Clearview in Canada was also reported in 2025.