Driven by the development of AI and other technologies, companies are gaining increasing ability1 to access and extract volumes of information from various online sources across jurisdictions. The ease and far-reaching capabilities of these data extraction or "scraping" tools give companies a competitive advantage that is enticing. With this ability, however, comes responsibility, particularly where personal information is concerned and regardless of whether the company is a foreign entity.
The highly anticipated B.C. decision of Clearview AI Inc. v. Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, 2024 BCSC 23112 is a seminal ruling on the jurisdictional application of BC's Personal Information Protection Act, S.B.C. 2003, c. 63 (BC PIPA) that may have ripple effects across other jurisdictions.
Background
This case stems from a U.S.-based company's "scraping" of images of the faces of individuals using facial recognition technology, including those in British Columbia, without their consent from various public websites and online platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. The company, Clearview AI Inc. (Clearview), collected these images for the purposes of providing facial recognition services to third parties such as law enforcement agencies and private sector entities, allowing them to match faces to the images contained within Clearview's searchable biometric database. To date, Clearview's database contains over 50 billion facial images collected across the Internet.3
Following a joint investigation, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia (the Commissioner), the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and other privacy commissioners in Alberta and Québec issued a report that recommended that Clearview cease offering its facial recognition services to clients in Canada, cease collecting, using, and disclosing personal information collected by individuals in Canada, and delete personal information collected from individuals in Canada (the Report). Clearview refused to comply with the Report's recommendations, causing the Commissioner to issue an order to enforce the recommendations as they apply to individuals in British Columbia (the Order).4
Clearview brought a petition before the British Columbia Supreme Court seeking judicial review of the Order. In particular, Clearview challenged the Order, positing that because it has no employees, offices or servers in B.C., it is not subject to BC PIPA...
