An information commissioner’s office (ICO) fine of more than £7.5m was issued to Clearview AI for unlawfully storing facial images.

In a statement, Clearview AI’s lawyer Jack Mulcaire said the firm was pleased with the result.

As a result of the judgment, the ICO said it would “take stock”.

A system provided by Clearview AI allows users to upload a photo and the system finds matches in a database of billions of images.

A link to online images matching the search term is then provided.

US police have used Clearview’s services to solve a wide range of crimes, including murders, according to the company’s founder Hoan Ton-That.

Additionally, he revealed that its database contained 30 billion images scraped from the web.

The use of Clearview’s technology by law enforcement has been criticized for putting everyone in a “perpetual police line-up”.

Besides the ICO, France, Italy, and Australia also took action against the firm before the ICO’s actions were ruled unlawful.

Since a 2020 settlement in a case brought by US civil liberties campaigners, Clearview AI only accepts clients whose functions are related to criminal law enforcement and national security.

According to Tuesday’s judgement, Clearview has no customers in the UK or the EU, but its customers come from other countries such as Panama, Brazil, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.

Due to the fact that Clearview was solely used by law enforcement bodies outside the UK, it was able to appeal against the ICO’s fine and enforcement action.

Although Clearview did process information related to monitoring the behavior of people in the UK, the First-tier Tribunal concluded that the ICO did not have jurisdiction to take enforcement action or fine the company.