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Comment by chmod775 | Hacker News Reader

If you cannot comply with Canadian laws, you cannot sell to, or operate in, Canada.

I don't think Clearview AI has any employees in Canada, so what do they stand to gain from this lawsuit? Does that tiny startup have any customers of note there?

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Is the RCMP a customer of note? https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-clearview-ai-1.6060228

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is almost certainly a customer (though no-one will ever admit it).

They could be the ones pushing Clearview to fight this in Canadian court.

I suspect they simply wouldn't care unless they actually fear repercussions from Canadian authorities. Whether those potential repercussions would be something to fear here and now, or if they simply want to keep the door open for potential future expansion, is not quite clear.

On the other hand, the scraping/facial recogniton they do would also violate European privacy regulations, and it could be they feel a win in a similar case would come in handy if they ever decide to offer their services to European customers.

This is my guess. They're worried about precedent. If this is allowed to stand it gives other jurisdictions a roadmap for how to shut this down

Yes. I can't quote anything on this, but they were in trials with major tourism companies at the very least. Probably lucrative enough on their own, but in terms of data collection as a resource, those contracts would be a gold mine.

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