Clearview AI Used Nearly 1 Million Times By US Police

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: 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 30 billion images scraped from platforms such as Facebook, taken without users' permissions. [...] The company is banned from selling its services to most US companies, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took Clearview AI to court in Illinois for breaking privacy law. But there is an exemption for police, and Mr Ton-That says his software is used by hundreds of police forces across the US.

Police in the US do not routinely reveal whether they use the software, and it is banned in several US cities including Portland, San Francisco and Seattle. The use of facial recognition by the police is often sold to the public as only being used for serious or violent crimes. In a rare interview with law enforcement about the effectiveness of Clearview, Miami Police said they used the software for every type of crime, from murders to shoplifting. Assistant Chief of Police Armando Aguilar said his team used the system about 450 times a year, and that it had helped solve several murders. However, critics say there are almost no laws around the use of facial recognition by police.

taken without users permissions

[spacepimp]

So facebook and other entities fail to protect our image privacy, and we get no recourse. Those images are stolen by Clearview AI and sold as a service to our government, and we have no recourse to Clearview AI or the various agenices. If the government gets what it wants they don't care about us US citizens. We used to live in a country that at least on paper respected our privacy. Those days have past, and few seem to mourn their passing.

Re:taken without users permissions

[b0s0z0ku]

Nah, law enforcement never gave a shit about privacy in the US - they just didn't have the tech to violate it as effectively. Remember, until the 1960s/70s the law used to criminalize sex and marriage between consenting unrelated adults via miscegenation and sodomy laws. Government was literally in people's bedrooms, all up in their business. Mass surveillance by the FBI, phone taps of anti-war people, surveillance of "communists" were also a very real problem in the 50s through 70s.

Re:

[b0s0z0ku]

Actually, natural gas has only been common since the 1960s. Before that, we got "town gas", made from combining coal with high-pressure steam to make hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Toxic as well as explosive. We should go back to that technology :)

Re:

[gtall]

The Federal Gov. tries to protect you from breathing harmful chemicals and you, without any basis in fact, twist it into the bureaucrats are feathering their own nest.

We already have state governments persecuting people they don't like, see Texas and Florida. The roles certainly have flipped. Now every two-bit conservative official is in your bedroom.

The rest of your post-modern screed is bollocks, you ought to be on Fox.

Re:taken without users permissions

[jriding]

The gas stove market knew there was a problem with gas and looked to solve it in the 80s. Then decided it was cheaper not to fix it or add automatic venting for the stove. So now we are here again showing the companies won't ever do what is right and it must be forced on them. Require proper venting for stoves and the problem is solved.
Remember without regulation houses would fall down on a regular basis and we would still be using paper wrapped electrical lines.

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[PPH]

So facebook and other entities

How did those photos get on Facebook? You posted them as selfies? You have little recourse. Your buddies posted pics of you? Take it up with them.

If Clearview AI is scrapping Facebook for content, then Facebook might have a case against them, assuming that they were posted with some sort of privacy/non-public tag. But Facebook has questionable fiduciary duty to protect your data.

Other that all of this, you are SOL.

Did your buddy have you sign a release?

[rsilvergun]

then he didn't have the right to post your image for use by Clearview. But good luck enforcing that. This is why Europe passed laws.

AOC just did a video about it. How much national coverage did it get? Did you hear about it? How many other politicians are seriously talking about passing privacy legislation?

Change how you vote. Stop voting for grievances. Give up the culture war. Learn the difference between moral panics & civil rights. And vote in primary elections. You know which one.

Either

Re:

[PPH]

then he didn't have the right to post your image for use by Clearview.

If he took my picture in a public place, then yes he does.

AOC just did a video about it. ....
Learn the difference between moral panics & civil rights.

I don't listen to AOC because I don't like moral panics.

Re:

[rsilvergun]

You're kind of loves moral panics. It's all you've got because your economic policies are such abject failures. Prosperity Gospel and hero worship don't make for good strong economies and that's all the right wing has and all they ever will have.

And I think you'll find that just being in the public space doesn't completely give up every single right you have. You're confusing copyright law with privacy law. If I could just take a picture of people in public spaces and use it for anything release forms w

Re:taken without users permissions

[sdinfoserv]

What rock have you been under? The images were not "stolen", you freely gave them away when you uploaded them. As you freely give away you positioning information, your friends, your likes, your proclivities, end every other morsel of information your naïve enough to hand them. FB, and every other media company sell data to anyone who wants it, including Governments. Social media has never, ever given any shits about "privacy". They are businesses. The goal of business is to make profit. period. And ~surprise~ you are not the customer, you are the product.

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[spacepimp]

You're assuming I have a facebook account. Plenty of people upload pictures of you to facebook without your consent. You are probably on there too. Then someone tags you in a photo.

Re:taken without users permissions

[sdinfoserv]

I'm not assuming anything.. I'm responding to the assertation that the images were "stolen". Anyone who believes that is negligently naïve. I'm also using the term "you" in the general sense. And yes, people who have not created profiles in FB, still have "profiles". Those are termed "dark profiles". For example, "you" (in the general sense) go to your mothers birthday party and your sister takes a photo, that you happen to be in, and posts it. Now FB has a picture of you, the geo location, meaning they can extrapolate expected income and/or net worth by home location, everyone there who does have a profile is attributed to you along with their "likes" and relationships are built, every object in the background is identified and categorized to determine preferences, all those with FB installed on their mobile devices build a map of travel. It's all automated and the more pictures taken, the more is learned about "you". "you" never gave any consent and specifically choose not to join, but they know everything about you. and we know nothing about them. This should be criminal, but it's business as usual for the kleptocrats.

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[gtall]

Sold to local government police. Be accurate.

Violent felonies only

[backslashdot]

Use it for solving serious violent felonies only. Any other use should be a felony in itself.

Re: Violent felonies only

[DivineKnight]

Lol, sure. *pinky swears*

Delete yourself from the Clearview database?

[Foundryman]

Wikihow has an article on checking to see if you're included in the Clearview database and request removal:
https://www.wikihow.com/Delete... [wikihow.com].

But gotta love this step, where, in order to see if they have your image, you first have to send them your image:

4. Provide a photo of yourself so Clearview AI can search for your data.

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[sysrammer]

But gotta love this step, where, in order to see if they have your image, you first have to send them your image:

4. Provide a photo of yourself so Clearview AI can search for your data.

And I'm sure they will conscientiously remove your photo from their main database. And place the picture that you just sent into a "special" database (they need to keep it to show they complied with the request, natch). In a cynical world I imagine they'd be able to really jack up the access fees to this database. For "eyes only" access, ofc. Or "Five Eyes only" access perhaps. Or fill in your favorite government/business/billionaire intelligence service.

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[torkus]

Their tool is a facial recognition search, how else would they find you in their database?

That said, it sounds almost as creepy as the revenge porn sites requiring your full ID and a 'verification' picture of you holding a sign.

Clearview AI should absolutely be outlawed, legislated out of existence, or some equally drastic but firm way to end this line of business entirely.

Yanked all my photos ages ago.

[Oryan Quest]

Back when deep dream dropped I saw the writing on the wall. I closed all my major social media accounts and changed the remaining avatars from photographs to cartoons.

Last year I made various warped versions of my face and added them to about a dozen fake social media accounts.

Government cant do it, but can use others.

[SirLanse]

The Government can't suck up all the photos, it would be a gross intrusion to your privacy. So, they use a 3rd party. The government can't keep track of all the cell phone calls that you made, instead they require the phone companies to keep a log of them, that they query whenever they want. It is very slimy.