Canada: Court of King’s Bench of Alberta issued ruling on Clearview AI’s challenge to Privacy Commissioner’s order to delete facial recognition data (Clearview AI Inc v Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner) (No. ABKB 287)

On 8 May 2025, the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta ruled in the case Clearview AI's lawsuit challenging the Privacy Commissioner’s order to delete facial recognition data. The lawsuit concerned the application of Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) to Clearview Artificial Intelligence's (AI's) facial recognition database and practices. The court determined that Clearview AI is subject to PIPA and that images scraped from social media are not considered 'publicly available' under the PIPA's exemption provisions, thus requiring consent for collection and use. While finding that a portion of the PIPA regulation on publicly available information was overly broad and infringed freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by potentially covering legitimate activities, the court upheld the Privacy Commissioner's order specifically against Clearview AI's use of facial recognition technology as unreasonable under PIPA. The court also found the Commissioner's order enforceable. As a result of the ruling, Clearview AI must cease offering its facial recognition services in Alberta, discontinue collecting images of Albertans, and delete existing data obtained from Albertans.