Clearview AI Selling Facial Data to Police Not Protected Speech

Clearview AI’s facial recognition service must face a suit from Californians who allege the company’s database violates their publicity rights and is an invasion of privacy, a state appeals court affirmed.

Creating a facial recognition database and selling it to law enforcement isn’t protected speech that would be immunized from litigation by California’s anti-SLAPP law preventing baseless suits over speech tied to the public interest, California Court of Appeal, First District justices wrote in an unpublished Thursday opinion.

Clearview argued its supply of information to law enforcement is protected speech that supports governmental deliberations. Its attorneys argued the suit seeks to end that exchange of information, and is barred by the anti-SLAPP law.

But selling data to support law enforcement efforts doesn’t by itself contribute to public discourse or convey a viewpoint, the panel said, since it is “a for-profit corporation, and whatever investigative purposes its government customers may have, Clearview’s purpose in offering a facial recognition service is a commercial one.”

Further weighing against a finding of public interest is the fact that “Clearview delivers its search results in confidence, expressly prohibiting any public disclosure of them, including later use in court,” the court said.

Community organizers and activists sued Clearview in California state court, arguing that the database additionally puts them at risk of retaliation for their political advocacy against the police and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

An Illinois federal judge in March approved a settlement in separate biometric privacy litigation against Clearview that would give a class of consumers a 23% equity stake in the company.

Justice Jeremy M. Goldman wrote the opinion, which was joined by Justices Tracie L. Brown and Peter J. Siggins.

The case is Renderos v. Clearview AI, Inc., Cal. Ct. App., No. A167179, 5/22/25.