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Upper Tribunal upheld ICO jurisdiction on 3 of 4 grounds, overturned 2023 FTT decision. Case remitted to FTT for substantive hearing. Clearview appealing to Court of Appeal.
In May 2022, the ICO fined Clearview AI £7,552,800 for scraping billions of images of UK residents from the internet to build a facial recognition database sold to law enforcement. Clearview appealed; in October 2023 the First-tier Tribunal found the ICO lacked jurisdiction because Clearview served foreign law enforcement. On 7 October 2025, the Upper Tribunal reversed that decision ([2025] UKUT 319 (AAC)), finding UK GDPR applies extraterritorially and that "behavioural monitoring" includes passive automated collection of data for potential future profiling. ICO jurisdiction was reinstated. The case is a landmark authority on the extraterritorial reach of UK GDPR and the definition of behavioural monitoring. Clearview has no UK assets, making practical enforcement uncertain. As of December 2025, Clearview has been granted permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
In May 2022, the ICO fined Clearview AI £7,552,800 for scraping billions of images of UK residents from the internet to build a facial recognition database sold to law enforcement. Clearview appealed; in October 2023 the First-tier Tribunal found the ICO lacked jurisdiction because Clearview served foreign law enforcement. On 7 October 2025, the Upper Tribunal reversed that decision ([2025] UKUT 319 (AAC)), finding UK GDPR applies extraterritorially and that "behavioural monitoring" includes passive automated collection of data for potential future profiling. ICO jurisdiction was reinstated. The case is a landmark authority on the extraterritorial reach of UK GDPR and the definition of behavioural monitoring. Clearview has no UK assets, making practical enforcement uncertain. As of December 2025, Clearview has been granted permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Upper Tribunal upheld ICO jurisdiction on 3 of 4 grounds, overturned 2023 FTT decision. Case remitted to FTT for substantive hearing. Clearview appealing to Court of Appeal.
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