Clearview AI Removal: What You Can (And Can't) Do in 2026

Clearview AI is the most-discussed face-search engine in the world and the hardest to opt out of. Unlike PimEyes, you can't search yourself on it. You can't see what they have on you. The product is sold to police departments, federal agencies, and an undisclosed list of private clients. The dataset is 100 billion+ scraped photos.

Removal is possible but works only in specific jurisdictions, and "removal" doesn't mean what most people assume.

What Clearview Actually Is

Clearview scraped public web pages — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, news sites, blogs, forums, employment pages — and built a face-recognition system on top of the resulting image dataset. They claim 100 billion+ faces. They sell lookups to law enforcement and a smaller (less-disclosed) commercial customer base.

ICE has used Clearview 100,000+ times since 2020 (FOIA-confirmed). 3,100+ US police departments have run searches. The Toronto Police, Met Police (UK), and federal agencies in multiple countries have run pilots or full deployments.

The legal pushback has been substantial. France fined Clearview €20M in 2022. Italy, Greece, the UK, and the Netherlands followed with their own fines, totalling €100M+. Clearview has refused to pay most of it. Australia ruled their scraping unlawful in 2021. Clearview kept the data anyway. Cross-border enforcement is structurally hard.

Why Removal Works Differently from PimEyes

PimEyes has a public opt-out form. You upload your photo, your ID, and they de-list you from search results. The mechanism is straightforward.

Clearview has no public-facing search. You can't show them what to remove. They have to find you in their dataset — which means they need a reference photo, your name, and a legal basis for the request before they can act.

Their official privacy form is at clearview.ai/privacy/requests. Whether they process your request depends almost entirely on which jurisdiction you live in.

What Works In Each Jurisdiction

EU / UK (GDPR)

Strongest position by far. Article 17 GDPR ("right to erasure") gives you a legal right to have your biometric data deleted. Clearview is required to respond within 30 days. They have, in practice, complied with most well-formed requests from EU/UK residents — often after multiple regulator-imposed fines.

Cite Article 17 GDPR explicitly. Provide proof of EU/UK residence (utility bill, government-issued address). Provide a clear photo. They will typically delete within 30 days and confirm by email.

California (CCPA)

CCPA §1798.105 gives you a right to deletion of personal information. "Personal information" under CCPA includes biometric data. Clearview has, since 2022, processed CCPA deletion requests from California residents.

Cite CCPA §1798.105 explicitly. Provide proof of California residence. The 45-day response window applies.

Illinois (BIPA)

Illinois had its own path. Clearview settled a BIPA class action in 2022 — they're prohibited from selling face-print data to most private entities in the US, and Illinois residents specifically can request deletion. The settlement created an explicit opt-out path for Illinois residents.

Cite "740 ILCS 14 (Biometric Information Privacy Act)" and reference the settlement. Most well-formed requests are processed.

Other US states

Texas (CUBI) and Washington (HB 1493) have biometric privacy laws but weaker enforcement mechanisms than BIPA. You can cite them, and Clearview sometimes processes requests on a discretionary basis. Other US states have no specific biometric law and limited federal protection. Requests can still be filed, and a meaningful percentage are processed — but it's not a legal obligation.

Other countries

Canada, Brazil, Australia, and several others have ruled Clearview's scraping unlawful but enforcement varies. Cite local privacy law (PIPEDA in Canada, LGPD in Brazil, Privacy Act in Australia) and the relevant national regulator's prior ruling on Clearview specifically.

How To File the Request

1. Go to clearview.ai/privacy/requests.
2. Select "Right to Access / Deletion" (not "Right to Object" — that's a different process).
3. Enter your full legal name and email. Use a real email — they reply.
4. Upload a clear, recent, front-facing photo. Same standard as PimEyes — needs to score high against any matches in their index.
5. Upload proof of residence. This is the field most US residents skip and shouldn't. Without proof of residence in a jurisdiction that compels them, your request is discretionary.
6. In the legal basis field, cite the specific statute (Article 17 GDPR, CCPA §1798.105, BIPA, etc.) — exact text, not paraphrased.
7. Submit. Note the request ID. They send a confirmation; if they don't, the submission likely failed.
8. Wait. EU/UK: 30 days. California: 45 days. Other jurisdictions: indefinite, follow up at 60 and 90 days.

What Doesn't Work

• Cease-and-desist letters from non-EU/non-California addresses. They're under no obligation to respond.
• Asking law enforcement to remove you from their lookups. Not the right vector — police are users, not the controller.
• Using a VPN to make it look like you're in the EU. They check residency proof against IP and document. Mismatch = rejection.
• Filing once and assuming you're done. New scrapes happen. Their index updates. Annual refile is the practical minimum.

Realistic Expectations

Even an approved Clearview deletion request doesn't remove the source photos from the open web. It removes your face from Clearview's lookup index. Police and other Clearview customers stop getting your face back when they search a related image.

That matters. It changes the math on whether a photo of you taken at a protest, a public event, or a surveillance camera ends up identified through Clearview specifically. It doesn't change whether the photo exists.

For most people, Clearview removal is one of several requests that have to be filed in parallel. PimEyes, Precheck.ai, FaceCheck.ID, Lenso.ai, Yandex — each maintains its own index. None of them shares with Clearview. None of them shares with each other. Each requires its own removal flow, on its own cadence.