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Upper Tribunal rules the ICO can enforce UK data law against Clearview AI

See how this story connects

The Upper Tribunal upheld three of the Information Commissioner’s four grounds on 8 October 2025. It found that Clearview AI’s facial recognition processing relates to monitoring the behaviour of UK residents and falls within UK data protection law. It sent the case back to the First-tier Tribunal, which had overturned the ICO’s £7.5 million fine of May 2022. Clearview was granted permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal in December 2025.

Why it matters

Foreign companies that scrape images of UK residents to build facial recognition databases were told that UK data protection law can reach them.

When
8 Oct 2025
ID
WTA-N-2025-0159
Who
Information Commissioner’s Office, Clearview AI, Upper Tribunal
Authority
Upper Tribunal
Target
Clearview AI
Action
ruling: ICO has jurisdiction; £7.5m (fine at issue)
Status
remitted; appeal permitted · Enforcement ledger

Summary by wheresthe.ai, from Information Commissioner’s Office. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.

Source copy: download the page as saved on 18 Oct 2026 (PDF). Document the source offers: document 1 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: What happened nextICO secures data protection changes from ten AI developers and opens agent inquiry

Cite this story

WTA-N-2025-0159: “Upper Tribunal rules the ICO can enforce UK data law against Clearview AI.” wheresthe.ai, 8 Oct 2025. https://wheresthe.ai/d/gb-upper-tribunal-clearview-ico-jurisdiction-2025-10/ (source: Information Commissioner’s Office).

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