Australia regulator demands face-scanning firm delete photos

By MATT O’BRIEN
AP Technology Writer

An Australian privacy authority has ordered facial recognition company Clearview AI to stop scanning the faces of Australians and destroy the images and related data it has already collected. It’s the latest challenge for the New York startup that has angered privacy advocates around the world over its practice of “scraping” photos from social media to identify people wanted by police and other government agencies. Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said Wednesday that the company breached Australians’ privacy by pulling their personal data from the web and disclosing it through its facial recognition tool. Clearview says it plans to appeal the decision.