Facial recognition firm Clearview has run nearly a million searches for US police, its founder has told the BBC

CEO Hoan Ton-That also revealed Clearview now has 30bn images scraped from platforms such as Facebook, taken without users' permissions. The company has been repeatedly fined millions of dollars in Europe and Australia for breaches of privacy.

Critics argue that the police's use of Clearview puts everyone into a "perpetual police line-up". "Whenever they have a photo of a suspect, they will compare it to your face," says Matthew Guariglia from the Electronic Frontier Foundation says. "It's far too invasive."[1]

Figure 1. According to Clearview AI, US police used it roughly 1 million times

According to Clearview AI, US police used it roughly 1 million times is shown in figure 1. Clearview AI, a facial recognition firm, has revealed to the BBC that it has run nearly a million searches for US police. Its CEO Hoan Ton-That also revealed that the company has scraped 30 billion images from platforms such as Facebook, without users’ permission.

This has led to Clearview being fined millions of dollars in Europe and Australia for privacy breaches. Critics argue that the police’s use of Clearview puts everyone into a “perpetual police line-up”.

Clearview AI is a facial recognition company that has created a powerful and accurate system for law enforcement customers. The system allows customers to upload a photo of a face and find matches in a database of billions of images. It then provides links to where matching images appear online.

However, this system has been criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as being too invasive. They argue that it is a violation of privacy and could lead to false arrests. It is important to note that this technology is still in its early stages and its implications are yet to be fully understood.

Clearview AI has been using facial recognition technology to create face prints of people based on their photos online without their consent. This has raised serious concerns about civil liberties and civil rights, and many are calling for the company to be banned.[2]

The lack of transparency around police use of facial recognition means the true figure of wrongful arrests it’s led to is likely far higher. Civil rights campaigners want police forces that use Clearview AI to openly say when it is used, and for its accuracy to be openly tested in court. They want the systems to be scrutinised by independent experts.

The use of facial recognition technology by police is a contentious issue. While it may help solve crimes, it also poses a threat to civil liberties and privacy. Ultimately, it’s a fine line between using technology to fight crime and infringing on individual rights, and we need to tread carefully to ensure we don’t cross it. [3]

References:

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65057011
2. [https://boxmining.com/police-use-clearview-ai-for-nearly-1m-searches-privacy-breach/
3. https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2023/03/28/clearview-ai-us-police-almost-1m-searches/

Cite this article:

Gokula Nandhini K (2023), According to Clearview AI, US police used it roughly 1 million times, Anatechmaz, pp.270