The Clearview Database That's Still Scraping: ICO Can't Stop It
The short version: A UK tribunal loophole let Clearview AI keep scraping faces worldwide, proving that once a mass-surveillance database exists, regulators struggle to actually shut it down.
Our Take
Credit to Tech Exposed for digging into the paper trail on this one. The headline is simple but chilling: a regulator can issue a stop order, win a public fight, and still watch the company keep doing exactly what it was told not to do. That's not a Clearview problem — it's a structural problem with how we try to rein in surveillance tech after the fact instead of before it's built.
This is the same pattern we track every day with license plate reader networks like Flock Safety. Once billions of images — or plate scans — are already flowing into a private database, 'enforcement' becomes a game of jurisdictional whack-a-mole. Courts and regulators argue over technicalities while the scraping, or the scanning, never actually stops. The lesson for Americans watching this unfold overseas is that we shouldn't expect U.S. regulators to do any better with ALPR data, which faces even less federal oversight than facial recognition does in the UK.
If a national data watchdog can't claw back control once a biometric database exists, local communities need to stop it from being built in their backyard in the first place. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and head to take-action if you want to push back before your town becomes the next 'audit trail that never stopped.'
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Tech Exposed, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.