Clearview AI Offered Free Facial Recognition Trials To Police Around the World

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Law enforcement agencies and government organizations from 24 countries outside the United States used a controversial facial recognition technology called Clearview AI, according to internal company data reviewed by BuzzFeed News. That data, which runs up until February 2020, shows that police departments, prosecutors' offices, universities, and interior ministries from around the world ran nearly 14,000 searches with Clearview AI's software. At many law enforcement agencies from Canada to Finland, officers used the software without their higher-ups' knowledge or permission. After receiving questions from BuzzFeed News, some organizations admitted that the technology had been used without leadership oversight.

In March, a BuzzFeed News investigation based on Clearview AI's own internal data showed how the New York -- based startup distributed its facial recognition tool, by marketing free trials for its mobile app or desktop software, to thousands of officers and employees at more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities. Clearview claims its software is more accurate than other facial recognition technologies because it is trained on a database of more than 3 billion images scraped from websites and social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Law enforcement officers using Clearview can take a photo of a suspect or person of interest, run it through the software, and receive possible matches for that individual within seconds. Clearview has claimed that its app is 100% accurate in documents provided to law enforcement officials, but BuzzFeed News has seen the software misidentify people, highlighting a larger concern with facial recognition technologies.

Based on new reporting and data reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Clearview AI took its controversial US marketing playbook around the world, offering free trials to employees at law enforcement agencies in countries including Australia, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. To accompany this story, BuzzFeed News has created a searchable table of 88 international government-affiliated and taxpayer-funded agencies and organizations listed in Clearview's data as having employees who used or tested the company's facial recognition service before February 2020, according to Clearview's data. Some of those entities were in countries where the use of Clearview has since been deemed "unlawful." Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That insists the company's key market is the U.S., saying: "While there has been tremendous demand for our service from around the world, Clearview AI is primarily focused on providing our service to law enforcement and government agencies in the United States. Other countries have expressed a dire need for our technology because they know it can help investigate crimes, such as, money laundering, financial fraud, romance scams, human trafficking, and crimes against children, which know no borders."

Ton-That alleged there are "inaccuracies contained in BuzzFeed's assertions," but declined to explain what those might be and didn't answer any follow-up questions.

Re: "The Beating of a Liberal"

[ThurstonMoore]

Why Marines are you too chickenshit to do it yourself.

Re:

[Gravis Zero]

Why Marines are you too chickenshit to do it yourself.

Forget doing it himself, he's too chickenshit to even post under his nick.

Meh

[bryanandaimee]

The bigger picture is whether or not AI facial recognition should be used in law enforcement at all, not whether some LEO's downloaded a free app without permission from their CO. The article seems to be making a big deal about trivia while dancing around the elephant in the room.

Re:

[imidan]

I feel like, in principle, using facial recognition is fine. If the cops have a video of a person committing a crime and they use facial recognition to match it to someone's driver's license photo, or facebook photo, then they have some grounds to check up on the person. But we read these stories where police assume facial recognition is infallible magic that always gets its man. It needs to be the start of an investigation, not the end of it. Unfortunately, I'm not sure police (as a general group) are capa

Re:

[mark-t]

There should be no theoretical problem with facial recognition in law enforcement being used unless one also objects to what is roughly the real physical world equivalent of police stations keeping of mug shots in an album of known past offenders.

Re:

[Frobnicator]

There should be no theoretical problem with facial recognition in law enforcement being used unless...

The frequently discussed (and often real world problem) is how it gets translated from the lab to real life.

RESEARCHER: When comparing an individual who is already a suspect, the tool can be used to exclude them if they don't match, or to identify a likelihood that a specific subject has similar markers. It is best used to exclude individuals, but if used as a tool of inclusion should only be considered as a single data point, not as evidence of guilt.

POLICE OFFICER: I'm going to just run a database sca

AI...

[zeeky boogy doog]

Will either bring us paradise on earth, or the most horrifying fascist dystopia conceivable, something that will make 1984 sound like a good time.

I will let the reader imagine what one designed by and for the CCP is more likely to lead to.

Plant DeepFake Profiles

[Canberra1]

1) Collect faces of public officials and people you detest 2) Run open source software to make their faces more generic 3) From credit reference reporting agencies collect their DOB and SSN 4) Create fake social media profiles with name matches in another country 5) Alter profile interests like public administration, law enforcement etc 6) Then later associate names with drugs, bikies. gangs, tax evasion, harassment etc 7) Hopefully they will get on the no fly list going forward. 8) At election time, start

So what?

[sabbede]

Since when are free trials a "controversial marketing playbook"? Oh, never? Right.

Seeing such ridiculous BS claims makes me think there's another motive here, and because of the context and source I suspect that it is to hinder law enforcement. Buzzfeed is a big supporter of Soros (find an article that isn't defending him), and Soros is a big supporter of preventing cops from fighting crime and prosecutors who don't prosecute offenders.

Re:

[RespekMyAthorati]

Soros, along with every intelligent person, is a big supporter
of preventing assshats like you from spewing ingorant lies

FTFY.

Re:

[sabbede]

Shows how much you know. https://www.politico.com/story... [politico.com]

Pfft

[LeeLynx]

Ton-That alleged there are "inaccuracies contained in BuzzFeed's assertions," but declined to explain what those might be and didn't answer any follow-up questions.

It was *25* countries, you hacks.