<https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/05/27/clearview-ai---the-facial...> Clearview AI, the American purveyor of facial recognition tech reportedly used by thousands of government and law enforcement agencies throughout the world, is facing an onslaught of legal complaints across Europe Thursday for allegedly breaching the bloc’s strict data protection laws. European privacy groups complained about Clearview AI's practices. A group of privacy campaigners—including Privacy International (PI) and noyb, whose founder fundamentally changed the way data flows between the EU and U.S.—filed complaints with data protection regulators in France, Austria, Italy, Greece and the U.K. accusing the company of illegally using personal data. Clearview AI works by scraping images from publicly available websites and social media, without consent, and sells access to the image database to law enforcement agencies and private companies who can use it as a facial recognition tool. noyb described its practices as “dishonest” and “extremely intrusive,” amounting to constant surveillance and a grave threat to personal freedom. “Extracting our unique facial features or even sharing them with the police and other companies goes far beyond what we could ever expect as online users,”  said Ioannis Kouvakas, legal officer at PI.