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Sweden’s data protection authority, the IMY, has fined the local police authority €250,000 ($300k+) for unlawful use of the controversial facial recognition software, Clearview AI, in breach of the country’s Criminal Data Act.
As part of the enforcement the police must conduct further training and education of staff in order to avoid any future processing of personal data in breach of data protection rules and regulations.
The authority has also been ordered to inform people whose personal data was sent to Clearview — when confidentiality rules allow it to do so, per the IMY.
Its investigation found that the police had used the facial recognition tool on a number of occasions and that several employees had used it without prior authorization.
Earlier this month Canadian privacy authorities found Clearview had breached local laws when it collected photos of people to plug into its facial recognition database without their knowledge or permission.
“IMY concludes that the Police has not fulfilled its obligations as a data controller on a number of accounts with regards to the use of Clearview AI. The Police has failed to implement sufficient organisational measures to ensure and be able to demonstrate that the processing of personal data in this case has been carried out in compliance with the Criminal Data Act. When using Clearview AI the Police has unlawfully processed biometric data for facial recognition as well as having failed to conduct a data protection impact assessment which this case of processing would require,” the Swedish data protection authority writes in a press release.
The IMY’s full decision can be found here (in Swedish).
“There are clearly defined rules and regulations on how the Police Authority may process personal data, especially for law enforcement purposes. It is the responsibility of the Police to ensure that employees are aware of those rules,” added Elena Mazzotti Pallard, legal advisor at IMY, in a statement.
The fine (SEK2.5M in local currency) was decided on the basis of an overall assessment, per the IMY, though it falls quite a way short of the maximum possible under Swedish law for the violations in question — which the watchdog notes would be SEK10M. (The authority’s decision notes that not knowing the rules or having inadequate procedures in place are not a reason to reduce a penalty fee so it’s not entirely clear why the police avoided a bigger fine.)
The data authority said it was not possible to determine what had happened to the data of the people whose photos the police authority had sent to Clearview — such as whether the company still stored the information. So it has also ordered the police to take steps to ensure Clearview deletes the data.
The IMY said it investigated the police’s use of the controversial technology following reports in local media.
Just over a year ago, US-based Clearview AI was revealed by the New York Times to have amassed a database of billions of photos of people’s faces — including by scraping public social media postings and harvesting people’s sensitive biometric data without individuals’ knowledge or consent.
European Union data protection law puts a high bar on the processing of special category data, such as biometrics.
Ad hoc use by police of a commercial facial recognition database — with seemingly zero attention paid to local data protection law — evidently does not meet that bar.
Last month it emerged that the Hamburg data protection authority had instigating proceedings against Clearview following a complaint by a German resident over consentless processing of his biometric data.
The Hamburg authority cited Article 9 (1) of the GDPR, which prohibits the processing of biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, unless the individual has given explicit consent (or for a number of other narrow exceptions which it said had not been met) — thereby finding Clearview’s processing unlawful.
However the German authority only made a narrow order for the deletion of the individual complainant’s mathematical hash values (which represent the biometric profile).
It did not order deletion of the photos themselves. It also did not issue a pan-EU order banning the collection of any European resident’s photos as it could have done and as European privacy campaign group, noyb, had been pushing for.
noyb is encouraging all EU residents to use forms on Clearview AI’s website to ask the company for a copy of their data and ask it to delete any data it has on them, as well as to object to being included in its database. It also recommends that individuals who finds Clearview holds their data submit a complaint against the company with their local DPA.
European Union lawmakers are in the process of drawing up a risk-based framework to regulate applications of artificial intelligence — with draft legislation expected to be put forward this year although the Commission intends it to work in concert with data protections already baked into the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Earlier this month the controversial facial recognition company was ruled illegal by Canadian privacy authorities — who warned they would “pursue other actions” if the company does not follow recommendations that include stopping the collection of Canadians’ data and deleting all previously collected images.
Clearview said it had stopped providing its tech to Canadian customers last summer.
It is also facing a class action lawsuit in the U.S. citing Illinois’ biometric protection laws.
Last summer the UK and Australian data protection watchdogs announced a joint investigation into Clearview’s personal data handling practices. That probe is ongoing.
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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. This week felt oddly comforting from a tech news perspective: Facebook is copying something, early-stage startup data is flawed enough to talk about and sweet DoorDash is buying robots for undisclosed sums.
So, here’s a rundown of the tech news we got into (as always, jokes aren’t previewed so you’ll have to listen to the actual show to get our critique and Award Winning Analysis*):
- Ethena raising $2 million more for corporate training that is not awful, and Zeta raising $1.5 million for couples’ banking. Natasha has been killing the early-stage beat lately.
- How seed data could be getting harder and harder to parse from Alex’s desk, and why VC data in general is dicey, from Danny’s. We discuss if directional data is useful, and why the limited numbers could have a cultural impact on signal.
- Reddit raises $250 million, but doesn’t tell us who the investors are and what the money is precisely going to. Still, the company has had quite a year so far, so the capital comes at an interesting time.
- Justo, an online grocery based in Mexico, raises $65 million as the pandemic continues to shake up the way we live and shop.
- DoorDash buys a salad robot, which brings Natasha nostalgia and Danny anger.
- The inverted SoftBank J-Curve thesis is a must-listen and read.
- And from the world of dating, a big M&A deal that caught our attention, and the latest from the Bumble IPO.
In good news, long-time Equity producer Chris Gates is back starting next week, which means we’ll have our biggest crew ever helping get the show put together. And, in other good news, there’s going to be more Equity than ever for you to hear. Coming soon.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
*OK, so not award-winning yet. But soon enough, because manifestation works.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/11/does-softbank-have-20-more-doordashes/
The world has spent most of 2020 adapting to ever-changing guidelines and restrictions (with no end in sight, even as the vaccines start to roll out). Board meetings are quickly increasing in their significance to foster consistent and vital interactions as an organization. It’s essential for companies to capitalize on the essential time together during these uncertain times.
While we might look like the Brady Bunch while sharing a Zoom window, are you actually communicating more like the family from “Succession?”
Are your meetings organized? Do people talk over one another? Do you usually run over time? Are you giving people time to digest information?
As we move into 2021 and Q1 meetings are being put onto calendars, take some time to modernize how you conduct your board meetings.
Board meetings are quickly increasing in their significance to foster consistent and vital interactions as an organization.
Having served on public company boards, growth-stage businesses and Series A startups, an observation I have made in boards that are later stage are more about financial analysis and governance. Whereas earlier-stage board discussions hinge more on product strategy, key partnerships, sharing best practices to help develop founders as executives and important hiring decisions.
Since the nature of the discussions is more, let’s call it … creative in earlier-stage businesses, where the focus is on where they’ve been particularly impacted by reduced bandwidth for collaboration while meeting remotely.
As said best by Mike Maples and paraphrased by Jeff Bonforte — there are only four things a board really needs to consider:
- Has the market changed since we last met? If so, did it affect us negatively or positively?
- Has the team changed? For better or worse?
- Has our position in the market changed?
- Can we do what we said we would?
Collecting data around those points is the job. In the meeting, the team can add color.
Remember the board works for you, so be sure to put them to work. Sharing materials with participants about three days ahead of time tends to be the best. Any later and they may not get enough time to digest, send earlier and the information might be out of date by the time you meet. It’s most common to format as a deck, but lately I’m seeing more written format and even magazine-style.
The number one request I get from early-stage companies is “help find me more customers.”
Other common requests are “help me find or land this type of talent, help me with industry benchmarks for this type of business deal or compensation structure, connect me to people that have experience with X so I can learn ways we could structure our process.” It’s helpful to put these asks in the materials you send ahead because sometimes board members might not be able to react quickly and now “homework” comes up spontaneously in the discussions.
Another purpose of these meetings is to build working relationships so when strategic decisions need to be made, board members are used to working together. Sometimes it is a forum for executives to gain exposure to board members and for board members to have the opportunity to evaluate and provide input on executives. For that reason execs are often invited to participate in certain discussions.
Like the product person who presents a roadmap or a market analysis, the head of sales should give color on pipeline and competitive deals, the marketing person may lead a discussion on ABM or channel marketing tactics, the engineering lead might ask for feedback on their metrics versus other companies, etc. Generally, CEOs also bring forth an interesting topic to have a discussion, such as channel strategy, market mapping/sizing, hiring plan and related issues.
Logistics
As far as logistics, we reserve two hours in calendars but we try to hit 90 minutes. I suggest something like this for a 90-minute session:
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/11/best-practices-for-zoom-board-meetings-at-early-stage-startups/
Building off TechCrunch’s coverage of the recent 500 Startups demo day, we’re back today to talk about some favorites from three more accelerator classes. This time we’re digging into Techstars’ latest three accelerator classes.
What follows are four favorites from the Techstars’ Boston, Chicago and “workforce development” programs. As a team we tuned into the accelerator live pitches and dug into recordings when we needed to.
As always, these are just our favorites, but don’t just take our word for it. Dig into the pitches yourself, as there’s never a bad time to check out some super-early-stage startups.
Four favs from Techstars Boston
Everyday Life
- What: A platform that wants to make life insurance flexible and personalized.
- Why we like it: The insurtech wave, from auto insurance to home insurance, has underscored the need for more consumer-friendly plans. Life insurance still feels like an untapped part of the equation, and Everyday Life wants to use technology to make the process cheaper and simpler.
The founding team says that there’s solid interest in life insurance amid the coronavirus pandemic, which amounts to a $20 billion market opportunity.
