What is Clearview AI arguing in the UK Court of Appeal?

Clearview argues the Upper Tribunal was wrong to conclude that capturing and organising images amounts to monitoring behaviour. According to Biometric Update's October 20, 2026 report, the company says UK GDPR only captures controllers who are themselves engaged in behavioural monitoring, and that the potential for malicious use in Britain does not bring it under ICO jurisdiction. It also says the ICO's deletion order would force it out of business.

How much was Clearview AI fined by the ICO?

The ICO fined Clearview AI 7.5 million pounds in May 2022, roughly US$10 million, and issued an enforcement notice. The ICO said the company scraped images of UK residents from the web and social media and put them in a global database that any Clearview customer could use for facial recognition. The notice also required it to stop collecting UK residents' data and delete what it held.

Why does the case turn on 'monitoring behaviour'?

Because UK GDPR reaches a foreign company that is not established in the UK only in certain circumstances, and monitoring the behaviour of people in the UK is one of them. The Upper Tribunal found in October 2025 that Clearview's processing related to monitoring of UK residents. Clearview says collecting and organising photos is not monitoring behaviour; the ICO says it is, citing marketing that promises intelligence about human activities and behavioural trends.

Has Clearview AI already lost this case once?

It won first and then lost on jurisdiction. In October 2023 the First-tier Tribunal found UK GDPR did not apply to the American company. In October 2025 the Upper Tribunal upheld three of the ICO's four grounds, concluding that the ICO had jurisdiction, and sent the case back to determine the substantive appeal. On 19 December 2025 the Upper Tribunal granted Clearview permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

Does the Court of Appeal hearing mean my photos are safe from Clearview?

No. The hearing concerns whether the ICO had power to act, not whether any particular photo has been deleted. Even a win for the ICO would not automatically remove faces already collected, and enforcement against a US company is difficult. The control that works today is limiting identifiable faces in what you publish, for example by blurring bystanders and children before upload.

How do I blur faces in a video before posting it?

Upload the clip to BGBlur in your browser, let the AI detect every face, preview the motion-tracked blur across the whole video, then export. Processed files are deleted within 24 hours, and the free plan covers 3 videos a month at 720p. Check crowds and background figures at full size, and use the desktop app if you would rather the footage never leaves your computer.

Clearview AI vs UK ICO: Court of Appeal Hearing [2026]

Q: Who uses Clearview AI?

Mostly law enforcement and security bodies. Biometric Update reports that a Clearview attorney said 190 of the company's 236 clients are police, federal investigative or military bodies, with the rest law enforcement or national security organisations. The same report notes the US Bureau of Indian Affairs was revealed in September to have used Clearview since the beginning of 2026 or earlier.

Can a US company that scrapes billions of photos escape UK privacy law by saying it only builds a search engine? That is the question in front of the Court of Appeal this week. On October 20, 2026, Biometric Update reported that Clearview AI is arguing the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is "mistaken in characterizing the facial recognition supplied by Clearview AI as a tool for monitoring people's behavior," and that the ICO's data deletion order "would force Clearview AI out of business entirely, according to court filings."

The stakes reach beyond one company. The outcome will shape whether regulators can reach facial recognition firms based abroad, and it is another reminder that any face in a public photo or video can end up in a searchable database. This guide explains where the case stands, what each side argues, what UK GDPR says, and the practical steps for people who publish video.

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Update — October 24, 2026: For police use of live facial recognition in the UK, see Oxford Street's planned permanent cameras.

What Is the Clearview AI v ICO Court of Appeal Hearing About?

It is Clearview's challenge to a ruling that the ICO has legal power to fine it and order it to stop. The ICO originally fined Clearview £7.5 million (about US$10 million) in 2022 and ordered it to stop collecting the personal data of UK residents and to destroy what it had in its database, per Biometric Update. The ICO's own description says the company scraped "images of UK residents from the web and social media" and uploaded them "into its global online database that could be used for facial recognition by any Clearview customer."

The hearing runs until at least Wednesday, when, per the report, Privacy International is due to appear. Our earlier coverage of a Canadian ruling on the same company is in Clearview AI loses BC appeal: face scraping rules.

How Did the Case Get to the Court of Appeal?

Through a back-and-forth on jurisdiction, not on whether the scraping happened. Based on the report and the ICO's own statement, the sequence is:

May 2022: the ICO fines Clearview £7.5 million and issues an enforcement notice.
October 2023: the First-tier Tribunal finds UK GDPR does not apply to the American company.
October 2025: the Upper Tribunal reverses that, upholding three of the Commissioner's four grounds.
19 December 2025: the Upper Tribunal grants Clearview permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
October 2026: the Court of Appeal hearing.

The Upper Tribunal directed that the case be sent back to the First-tier Tribunal to decide the substantive appeal on the basis that the ICO had jurisdiction to issue its penalty and enforcement notices. So even if the ICO wins this round, the original fine is not yet finally confirmed.

What Did the Upper Tribunal Decide in October 2025?

It decided Clearview's processing is within reach of UK law. In its statement the ICO said the Upper Tribunal concluded that:

Clearview's processing of personal information is related to monitoring of behaviour of UK residents.
Providing services to foreign law enforcement and government agencies does not take the processing outside UK data protection law.
The First-tier Tribunal applied the law incorrectly when it found the processing outside the material scope of the UK GDPR under Article 2(1)(a).

UK Information Commissioner John Edwards said the decision "upheld our ability to protect UK residents from having their data, including images, unlawfully scraped and then used in a global online database without their knowledge."

What Is Clearview AI's Argument Now?

Clearview's argument is narrow and legal. Per Biometric Update, its filing says the Upper Tribunal was wrong to conclude that "capturing and organizing images amounts to monitoring behavior." Instead, it argues UK GDPR "only captures the processing of controllers who are themselves engaged in behavioral monitoring." In other words, Clearview says it supplies a tool; whoever uses the tool might monitor behaviour, but Clearview does not.

It also argues, through its lawyers at 11KBW, that "the potential for the technology to be used maliciously in Britain does not bring the company under ICO jurisdiction." And it says the deletion order would end its business.

How Does the ICO Answer?

The regulator says the question of whether the technology independently analyses behaviour is separate from the collection and organisation of photos, which it says amounts to monitoring. Per the report, the ICO also pointed to company promotional materials suggesting Clearview can provide "intelligence about human activities and behavioral trends."

Who Actually Uses Clearview?

Police and security bodies, by Clearview's own count. Biometric Update reports that a Clearview attorney said 190 of the company's 236 clients are police, federal investigative or military bodies, with the rest law enforcement or national security organisations. The report also says the US Bureau of Indian Affairs was revealed in September to have used Clearview since the beginning of 2026 or earlier.

That customer mix is part of why the monitoring question matters. The Upper Tribunal rejected the idea that serving foreign law enforcement puts a company outside UK law, so the ICO's reach depends on what the company does with UK residents' images, not on who buys the results.

Why Does "Monitoring Behaviour" Decide Whether UK Law Applies?

Because it is the hook that lets UK GDPR reach a company with no UK office. A controller outside the UK is covered when its processing relates to monitoring the behaviour of people in the UK. If the Court of Appeal accepted Clearview's reading, a company that only collects and organises images, leaving the "monitoring" to its customers, might fall outside the regime. If it accepts the ICO's reading, any face-scraping database holding UK residents' images is in scope wherever the company sits.

We cover the broader rules for publishers in our guides to UK GDPR and video privacy and the EU AI Act ban on untargeted facial image scraping.

Will the Ruling Delete My Photos From Clearview?

Not directly. The hearing is about regulatory power, and the deletion order is one of the things being fought. Even if the ICO prevails at every stage, enforcement against a US company that does not operate in the UK is hard, and a legal finding does not physically retrieve images. Canada's story shows the same gap: courts confirmed orders, but the collection had already happened. Expect years, not weeks.

How Can I Keep My Face Out of Scraped Databases?

You cannot stop a scraper visiting a public page, but you can control what it finds. This is where BGBlur fits: it blurs faces in the video and photos you publish, in your browser, with motion tracking so moving people stay covered. It does not remove faces already online, does not touch police systems, and cannot stop someone who photographs you in the street.

Blur before you post. Open BGBlur's face blur, upload an MP4, MOV or M4V, and let the AI find each face.
Blur other people first. Bystanders, customers, students and children did not agree to appear; see how to blur kids' faces before posting.
Preview every frame. Check crowds and background figures at full size; export only when no face is recognisable.
Choose private over public. Friends-only posts are not scraped from the open web in the same way.
Do not rely on disguises. Patterned clothing and makeup are unreliable; read does digital camouflage work against face detection.
Use the desktop app for sensitive footage so nothing is uploaded; see blurring faces in video without uploading it.

Pricing for context: the free plan allows 200MB files, 10 minutes and 3 videos a month at 720p; Pro ($12/month) gives unlimited processing at 1080p with no watermark; Business ($29/month) adds 4K, team features and API access. Processed files are deleted within 24 hours.

What Does This Mean for Creators and Businesses in the UK?

If you publish footage with identifiable people, you are a controller too, and the same law applies to you. The Clearview case is about the scraper, but your video is the raw material. A company posting customer or event footage with unblurred faces creates exposure for the people in it and compliance questions for itself. Our guide to protest privacy and drone and bodycam footage and WA police live facial recognition trial post show how identification risk travels from public cameras to public posts.

A workable policy is short: blur faces of anyone who has not agreed to appear, keep originals in a controlled place, and publish only the processed file. This is general information, not legal advice.

What Could the Court of Appeal Decide, and What Would Each Outcome Mean?

The Court of Appeal can side with Clearview, side with the ICO, or narrow the question, and each result would change what regulators can do. This is analysis of the possibilities, not a prediction of the judgment.

If the ICO Wins

The Upper Tribunal's reading stands: collecting and organising images of UK residents counts as processing related to monitoring behaviour. The case returns to the First-tier Tribunal to decide the substantive appeal against the £7.5 million penalty and the enforcement notice. For other face-search companies, the message would be that a US address does not take a scraper outside UK data protection law, a point the ICO has already framed as clarifying "the material and territorial scope provisions of the UK GDPR."

If Clearview Wins

The 2023 position would effectively be restored: a company that supplies a search tool, rather than itself watching individuals, could argue it sits outside the territorial reach of UK GDPR. The ICO would have to look to the customers who run the searches, or to new legislation. Clearview's own filing points this way when it says UK GDPR "only captures the processing of controllers who are themselves engaged in behavioral monitoring."

If the Court Narrows the Question

A ruling could also settle only part of the problem, for example by clarifying what "monitoring" requires without resolving the remedy. Either way the deletion order, which Clearview says could end its business, remains a separate fight that the substantive appeal will address.

What Is a Face Database Actually Storing?

A face database stores a numerical template derived from each face, linked to the source photo and the page it came from. That is what makes it different from an ordinary archive: a single new photo of a person can be compared against the templates, and the result points back to a name, an account or a location. The ICO's description of the case says the company's service "enables identification of those people" and, in its view, "monitors their behaviour." You do not need to know whether any given person is in the database for the risk to be real, which is why regulators have focused on the collection step rather than on individual lookups.

For creators, the practical consequence is simple. A public video with clear, front-facing faces is higher-quality input than a blurry still. Footage of crowds, queues, classrooms, shop floors and events can contain dozens of people who never agreed to be indexed. Blurring those faces before upload takes them out of the pool of images a scraper can template from that file.

Questions to Ask Before You Publish a Video With People in It

Use this short checklist before you post:

Who is in the frame? Include people in the background, reflections and screens.
Did they agree? Consent to be filmed is not consent to be published, and it is not consent to be searchable.
Is a child visible? Default to blurring.
Does the caption add identity? A name, workplace or school plus a face is the easiest match for any database.
Where does the original live? Keep unblurred files off public cloud links.

None of these steps depends on how the Clearview case ends. They reduce exposure under any outcome.

Honest Limits

Blurring protects the files you publish; weak pixelation can sometimes be partly reversed, so use a strong blur and review the export (see forensic de-pixelation and why weak blur fails). The Court of Appeal's decision is not out yet, and nothing in this article predicts it. Clearview is also one of many face search services, so a result against one company does not remove the technology.

The Bottom Line

Clearview AI told the Court of Appeal that collecting and organising photos is not "monitoring behaviour," and that a deletion order would end it. The ICO says the opposite and has already won on jurisdiction once. The judgment will tell us whether UK law reaches face-scraping firms based abroad. Whatever the court decides, faces scraped years ago will not come back on a legal timetable. The step in your hands is upstream: blur faces before you post, and keep the originals to yourself.

Blur faces instantly with AI-powered face detection