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An AI firm harvested billions of photos without consent. Britain is powerless to act
(www.politico.eu)
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
355 points (97.6% liked)
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EU laws apply to EU citizens, even on the internet. EU laws therefore tend to have surprisingly global effects, often called the 'Brussels Effect'.
A US company harvesting data from EU citizens is subject to EU laws and can be fined for breaking them accordingly, for example.
The Brussels effect is a book.
Are you saying the lawyer who specialises in data and privacy is wrong?
The company was working for a foreign government, not commercially
You could like, read the article?
Please read beyond the first Google result that you find: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
What a UK court has ruled based on EU law is not necessarily what an EU court would rule. They may well state that Clearview is a commercial partner of foreign law enforcement and therefore not protected (because it's not the foreign law enforcement itself doing the data harvesting, but a commercial firm intending to make money).
Besides, the UK court clearly ruled that the law did apply, but that Clearview wasn't in breach. This wasn't a jurisdiction issue, as you asserted initially.
Yes, not in breach. The UK laws have not been changed since brexit. Start dealing in facts, not some conceptual Brussels effect which isn't real other than REACH. The California effect is much larger.
The EU court can decide whatever the fuck it likes, it still has zero jurisdiction outside the EU.
Also, read the FUCKING article, the French also brought a case...
I'm not talking about who is in breach or not, I argued about the jurisdiction of the court, which they ruled that the law does apply to Clearview (even if it wasn't breached). It's literally in the article, maybe you should read it?
Also, foreign companies saving any data on EU citizens who reside in the EU are subject to the GDPR, see this webpage set up by lawyers who actually know about this stuff:
And the French also brought a case, precisely because the law does apply and they have jurisdiction. So thanks for proving my point I guess?
They weren't conducting business, as the article says. If they were, the law, in the UK, which hasn't changed, would apply. But they weren't.
Collecting personal data from EU citizens whilst they are in the EU is doing business in the EU, which is why the court ruled the law did apply. Did you read the article?
Clearview was not fined specifically because of a provision in that same law that says such data collection is permitted if they were doing this business on behalf of foreign law enforcement. So the UK court ruled the law does apply, but that Clearview wasn't in breach. The UK court used EU law to determine Clearview was not in breach of EU law. The fine was not removed because Clearview is outside of their jurisdiction, which they're simply not.
Yeah, I'm going to take the judgement as the truth over your opinion of a fictional ECJ judgement,, especially as the UK GDPR law is exactly the same as the EU one.
Please provide a link that shows otherwise
I think I understand your confusion now.
For starters, we're talking about the exact same ruling. And I think the snippet you posted will help me explain the issue.
GDPR is an EU law. It applies to all companies collecting data on EU citizens. If a company does, it falls under the jurisdiction of the GDPR and European (member state) courts (in this case a UK court). The UK court clearly held that it has jurisdiction, and could apply a penalty if Clearview were to be in breach of the law.
However, the court is not normally the one to hand out these fines. Instead, that is delegated to each country's data protection agency, which in the UKs case is the ICO. Now, the exact conditions under which the ICO is allowed to fine a company is defined in the GDPR. It defines the jurisdiction of the data protection agencies.
One of those conditions states that the ICO is not to have jurisdiction over data collection done for foreign law enforcement (that's usually covered by international treaties instead). The ICO for example can't fine the FBI or NSA or something.
In the case of Clearview, the ICO argued that sinced Clearview is a private company, they were not covered by this exclusion. Clearview argues that the sole purpose of the data collection is for foreign law enforcement, so that they are covered by that exclusion. Note that Clearview didn't argue that they can't be fined because they're not an EU company.
The court has ruled that yes, the GDPR applies to Clearview, but also that Clearview is covered by the exclusion outlined in the GDPR for foreign law enforcement, and thus that the ICO does not have the jurisdiction to fine them (again, note the difference between the jurisdiction of the law/court and that of the ICO). So GDPR applies, but Clearview is not in breach.
Hypothetically, had Clearview sold this data to other private companies instead of law enforcement agencies, then Clearview could not have argued that they were covered by the GDPR exemption, and thus the court would have ruled that the ICO does have the jurisdiction to fine them.
So in conclusion:
I hope this makes a bit more sense now.
Ok, I think I get where you are coming from, but your conclusion still doesn't argue the original point imo.
The GDPR law on the UK statute books is the exact same law as the EU one, it has not been amended. It's just that the ECJ is no longer the highest court. The UK supreme court is again supreme following brexit.
Please provide an example of where the EU has taken action successfully against a conpany that has no base in the EU though. I've not seen anything like that bef
The original point was that the UK was somehow in a worse position because of brexit, this is not true. The UK is no weaker legally because of exiting the EU. The law is identical.
Finding examples is difficult, as most articles tend to be about the big tech companies that have bases globally. But I can point you towards the legal mechanism the EU uses in the case of the US, which is the EU-US Data Protection Umbrella agreement, see here: "Law enforcement cooperation: EU-US Umbrella Agreement" https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection/eu-us-data-transfers_en#:~:text=Law%20enforcement%20cooperation%3A%20EU%2DUS%20Umbrella%20Agreement
This is an international agreement between the EU and the US. When the UK Brexited, I believe (but not 100% sure) they were no longer part of that agreement, meaning the UK lost the ability to efficiently go after companies without a base in the UK even if the law remained identical.
Ah ok. Yeah they just did a thing to replicate it recently. Not sure if that means there was a period when that ability was lost though
https://dpnetwork.org.uk/international-data-transfers-data-bridge