Decision

Doan v. Clearview Inc., 2023 FC 1612

Justice St-Louis - 2023-11-30

Read full decision. Summary prepared by Alan Macek:

The underlying action relates to Clearview AI's conduct, a US based corporation that provides facial recognition and identification services using a facial recognition technology data. Ms. Doan essentially claims Clearview’s actions amount to blatant, intentional and widespread copyright infringements of the defined class, described below, and violations of the moral rights of the Class Members since the collection, possession, reproduction, use, distribution, rental, sale, and offering for rent and for sale of the photographs collected by Clearview occurs without the consent of the rights holders. ... In the process Ms. Doan suggests, people would be required to query Clearview to determine if they are in, as they cannot self-identify based on the Class definition. Only those who do follow this process, assuming again it is available, could be identified as Class Members; this transform the scheme into an opt in one, before Class Members can actually opt-out. I agree with Clearview that it is not to say the Class does not exist in the abstract, the problem is that Ms. Doan has not established some basis in fact that we know, or can find out, now or later who its members are.

Decision relates to:

 

Canadian Intellectual Property