Facial recognition is here to stay. And we should all probably accept it

Krusty · Jan 22, 2020

The Australian behind Clearview AI, a facial recognition software, says it is being used here

Police across the globe are turning to a powerful new tool created by an Australian, facial recognition software called Clearview AI.

The technology has the potential to alter privacy as we know it, according to Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at American University.

Facial recognition is "going to change the relationship between the people who surveil and the people who are being surveilled," he said.

Founded by Hoan Ton-That, Clearview AI uses a database of 3 billion images, which allows police to use a photo of a suspect to find other images and information about that person from across the internet.

"We have millions and millions of different websites all around the web that we crawl and add to our database," he told the ABC's The World Today program.
Click to expand...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...earview-facial-recognition-interview/11887112

This statement has drawn the interest of Australian privacy commissioner Angelene Falk, who said she wanted to know whether the data of Australians had been collected.

"It has caught my regulatory attention and I am making inquiries of Clearview AI to ascertain whether or not Australians' data is implicated," she told RN Breakfast.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 22, 2020

China's pushback on facial recognition
As with Google and Microsoft, facial recognition regulation is a hot topic for Chinese tech companies
January 22, 2020
https://www.abacusnews.com/tech/goo...-topic-chinese-tech-companies/article/3046963

The country known for its ubiquitous use of facial recognition is now quietly preparing for more controls on facial recognition.

“The awareness of protecting data privacy is increasing among Chinese compared to several years ago,” said Jeffrey Shang, senior analyst at EqualOcean.
This increasing skepticism is part of a global trend.

Since then, big AI companies have stepped up their efforts to standardize facial recognition, Shang said. One of them is Megvii, an Alibaba-backed facial recognition company that’s planning a US$500 million Hong Kong IPO.
Other companies have joined the chorus. SenseTime, another major Chinese AI company, took the lead of a national standardization group for facial recognition technology last fall.
Click to expand...

hawki · Jan 24, 2020

"[London] Met police to begin using live facial recognition cameras...

The Metropolitan police will start using live facial recognition, Britain’s biggest force has announced.

The decision to deploy the controversial technology, which has been dogged by privacy concerns and questions over its lawfulness, was immediately condemned by civil liberties groups, who described the move as “a breathtaking assault on our rights”.

But the Met said that after two years of trials, it was now ready to use the cameras within a month..."

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...e-begin-using-live-facial-recognition-cameras

Soft Life · Jan 24, 2020

I'm willing to bet the data base was filled by cell phones secretly and willingly taking pictures of the person and sent off to google and other companies who combined data.

Phones take pics of our faces secretly while we use them.

I suggest putting tape over the cameras and also destroying the microphones. Only use phones with text and use Signal encryption. That would piss them off.

guest · Jan 24, 2020

Twitter wants Clearview AI to remove photos of people it has scraped from its service
Another privacy nightmare is waiting to happen
January 24, 2020
https://www.techspot.com/news/83691-twitter-wants-clearview-ai-remove-photos-people-has.html

A hot potato: Twitter has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Clearview AI, a company notorious for creating a database of facial recognition profiles using photos scraped from public sources. The social giant wants all the data scraped from its service to be deleted, as it violates its policies for content usage.

Twitter recently demanded that Clearview AI remove the data it collected from the public profiles of its users, after news broke that the latter had been scraping photos from the service for years and selling facial recognition software to law enforcement.
Clearview AI has been flying under the radar in a sea of apps and services, but an investigation from the New York Times revealed that Clearview has managed to gather more than 3 billion photos from big online platforms [...]

Interestingly, Clearview AI has updated its privacy policy to allow anyone to request the removal of any content it has from your online profiles. The catch is that in order to do that you have to provide a "name, a headshot and a photo of a government-issued ID to facilitate the processing of your request." Furthermore, there's no guarantee that they'll honor your request, which is more worrying.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 24, 2020

Facial recognition in schools: Even supporters say it won't stop shootings
The facial recognition industry is starting to see that its promises offer a false sense of security
January 24, 2020
https://www.cnet.com/features/facia...s-even-supporters-say-it-wont-stop-shootings/

From working with schools, RealNetworks, the streaming media company, says it's learned an important lesson: Facial recognition isn't likely an effective tool for preventing shootings.
If schools don't know who a likely shooter is, the company says, its software doesn't know who to find.

[...] the surveillance industry is facing the reality that facial recognition isn't well-equipped for the challenges of preventing school shootings. AI experts and privacy advocates have long argued this point. Now, facial recognition companies are starting to understand it, too.
After working with schools, however, RealNetworks' Vance is concerned that facial recognition provides educators with a false sense of security.

"We didn't see facial recognition as a good way to solve the problem," Falzone said. "When we looked more into it, we saw a lot of privacy issues."
False positives
Plenty of studies have raised concerns about flaws in facial recognition's accuracy, as well as its effects on privacy.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 24, 2020

Clearview AI Says Its Facial Recognition Software Identified A Terrorism Suspect. The Cops Say That's Not True
January 23, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/clearview-ai-nypd-facial-recognition

How a Terrorism Suspect Was Instantly Identified With Clearview,” read the subject line of a November email sent to law enforcement agencies across all 50 states through a crime alert service, suggesting its technology was integral to the arrest.
But there’s just one problem: The New York Police Department said that Clearview played no role in the case.

As it emerges from the shadows, Clearview is attempting to convince law enforcement that its facial recognition tool, which has been trained on photos scraped from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other websites, is more accurate than any other on the market.
Click to expand...

Clearview AI Blog entry
https://blog.clearview.ai/post/2020-01-23-clearview-is-not-public/

Clearview Is Not A Consumer Application
Our app is for law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrators and victims of crimes

Clearview AI's investigative tool has helped law enforcement solve thousands of serious crimes, including murder, sexual assault, domestic violence, and child sexual exploitation cases, as detailed in a recent New York Times article.
Clearview exists to help law enforcement agencies solve the toughest cases, and our technology comes with strict guidelines and safeguards to ensure investigators use it for its intended purpose only.

We believe Clearview’s best and highest use is to help keep the general public safe. That is why Clearview is not a consumer product.
Click to expand...

ronjor · Jan 24, 2020

New Jersey halts police use of creepy Clearview AI facial-recognition app

24 Jan 2020
The app, which scraped billions of photos from the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Venmo, and other online platforms, drew the world's attention last weekend following a detailed report in the New York Times. The app's supposed capability to identify practically anyone from even low-quality photos frightened privacy advocates and officials. And today, one of the latter — New Jersey's attorney general Gurbir Grewal — actually did something about it.
Click to expand...

hawki · Jan 27, 2020

hawki said: ↑

"The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It...

... Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared.
https://dnyuz.com/2020/01/18/the-secretive-company-that-might-end-privacy-as-we-know-it/

https://clearview.ai/
Click to expand...

"Our privacy doomsday could come sooner than we think...

The New York Times reports on a facial recognition tool that hasn’t made the news before ...secretive start-up called Clearview AI whose impact is as high as its profile is low...

The facial recognition searches that authorities conduct today are usually restricted to mug shots or driver’s license photos, ...Now, that database has expanded exponentially...

...Clearview’s algorithm has never been tested by an outside authority. There’s the risk of a hack...And, of course, there’s the risk of abuse...

Clearview has pitched its product to entities with less credibility than law enforcement...

...There also need to be limits on whether a tool such as Clearview’s can exist in this country in the first place.

Privacy legislation is a more promising area for action, to prevent third parties including Clearview from assembling databases such as these in the first place, whether they’re filled with faces or location records or credit scores. That will take exactly the robust federal framework Congress has so far failed to provide, and a government that’s ready to enforce it."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...2646a8-3d37-11ea-baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html

xxJackxx · Jan 27, 2020

hawki said: ↑

"Our privacy doomsday could come sooner than we think...
Click to expand...

I guess the past is sooner than we think...

guest · Jan 27, 2020

mood said: ↑

Investigation finds facial recognition 'epidemic' across British shopping centres and museums
August 16, 2019

Big Brother Watch: Facial Recognition ‘Epidemic’ in the UK
Click to expand...

Meadowhall facial recognition scheme troubles watchdog
January 27, 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51268093

BBC Radio 4's File on 4 has learned that South Yorkshire Police shared three photos of serious offenders and one of a vulnerable missing person with Sheffield's Meadowhall shopping centre.
It follows similar controversial tie-ups in Manchester and London.
Meadowhall owner British Land said the 2018 test only lasted four weeks.

Tony Porter, the Surveillance Camera Commissioner (SCC) for England and Wales, has now called for government inspections into police use of facial recognition technology.

"I think if the public are going to be reassured, there does need to be a very clear oversight mechanism," Mr Porter told File on 4.
"And I would say that at the moment isn't obvious. I think the next step is for the government to address that gap in each and every circumstance that is required."
Click to expand...

Tarnak · Jan 27, 2020

"These Days" has new meaning, when out walking. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=get+the+lowdown+taking+pictures+of+people+I+know+with+the+app,+Clearview?&d=1&bext=wop&ia=news

guest · Jan 28, 2020

Campaign to Ban Face Recognition at U.S. Colleges Gathers Steam
January 28, 2020
https://gizmodo.com/campaign-to-ban-face-recognition-at-u-s-colleges-gathe-1841302162

An organized campaign against the use of biometric surveillance at universities and colleges in the U.S. is ratcheting up pressure on institutions it believes are currently using—or are likely soon to adopt—face recognition technology.

Fight for the Future, one of the nation’s leading digital rights organizations, and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a nonprofit advocacy group, published on Tuesday a scorecard listing the stances of nearly 100 to university campuses on facial recognition use.
In a statement to Gizmodo, the group said that 45 schools had provided statements indicating they do not use, nor have any plans to use, face recognition.

Another 30 schools, Fight for the Future said, have ignored its inquiries. The group has painted face recognition broadly as both “unreliable” and “biased” and a “threat to basic rights and safety.”

“As this campaign continues, we’re ready to up the pressure on campuses that haven’t shared their facial recognition policies,” said Erica Darragh, a Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) board member.
Click to expand...

Some 40 organizations signed a letter on Monday calling on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB)—[...]

“There is also growing concern that facial recognition techniques used by authoritarian governments to control minority populations and limit dissent could spread quickly to democratic societies,” the letter states.
The groups, which include Color of Change, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Demand Progress, also point to a recent face recognition study by the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), which found that false positives disproportionately affect people of East and West African and East Asian descent.
Click to expand...

ronjor · Jan 28, 2020

Clearview AI Once Told Cops To “Run Wild” With Its Facial Recognition Tool. It's Now Facing Legal Challenges.

Ryan Mac Caroline Haskins Logan McDonald BuzzFeed News Reporters
Posted on January 28, 2020
Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that claims to have amassed a database of more than 3 billion photos scraped from Facebook, YouTube, and millions of other websites, is scrambling to deal with calls for bans from advocacy groups and legal threats. These troubles come after news reports exposed its questionable data practices and misleading statements about working with law enforcement.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 29, 2020

↑ Microsoft-backed facial recognition firm rethinks its role in Hong Kong August 30, 2019
↑ Microsoft to probe work of Israeli facial recognition startup it funded November 16, 2019
Click to expand...

Palestinian activists and Microsoft employees demand company cut ties with AnyVision, citing civil rights violations
January 28, 2020
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/pales...ies-anyvision-citing-civil-rights-violations/

Activists are planning a demonstration at Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., campus Wednesday to protest the company’s relationship with Israeli security firm AnyVision.

The protestors plan to deliver 75,000 petitions demanding Microsoft stop funding AnyVision, a company that makes surveillance technology, including a robust facial recognition product.
The activism follows revelations that AnyVision’s technology was used in a secret military surveillance project monitoring Palestinians in the West Bank. AnyVision denies its technology is used in that way.

In the summer of 2019 JVP launched a campaign to pressure Microsoft to #dropAnyVision, Israeli facial recognition tech co found to be secretly surveilling Palestinians. In 2020 we'll ramp up this campaign with partners @MPower_Change and @SumOfUs
More at https://t.co/65BznDbU49 pic.twitter.com/u4dfDiwg7V
— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) December 27, 2019
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 30, 2020

Remember FindFace? The Russian Facial Recognition Company Just Turned On A Massive, Multimillion-Dollar Moscow Surveillance System
January 29, 2020
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...al-recognition-surveillance-in-moscow-russia/

Built on several tens of thousands of cameras and what's claimed to be one of the most advanced facial recognition systems on the planet, Moscow has been quietly switching on a massive surveillance project this month.

The software that's helping monitor all those faces is FindFace, the product of NtechLab, a company that some reports claimed would bring "an end to anonymity" with its FindFace app.
Since then, NtechLab shut down the consumer app and pivoted to government surveillance, this week revealing it’s being paid at least $3.2 million for deploying its tools across the Russian capital.

NtechLab CEO Alex Minin claims, in an interview with Forbes, that it’s the biggest “live” facial recognition project in the world, even if there are larger non-real-time deployments. Real-time, live recognition can pick faces out in a crowd and instantly say whether or not they match those in police databases of wanted criminals.
There remain deep concerns about the privacy implications for such technology, given the constant live scanning of people’s faces.
Click to expand...

hawki · Jan 30, 2020

Chicago PD attempts to publicly defend it's use of Clearview AI after being sued in federal court force it to stop using it:

"Interim Chicago Police Superintendent Charlie Beck on Thursday offered a vigorous defense of CPD’s use of a facial recognition tool that matches images of unknown suspects to three billion photos scraped from social media.

Clearview AI, the Manhattan-based firm that developed the software, has come under fire after a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Chicago earlier this month seeking to halt the company’s data collection and after a New York Times report detailed the privacy concerns its technology has brought to the fore..."

https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-h...icago-police-facial-recognition-software-beck

guest · Jan 31, 2020

mood said: ↑

Remember FindFace? The Russian Facial Recognition Company Just Turned On A Massive, Multimillion-Dollar Moscow Surveillance System
January 29, 2020
Click to expand...

Moscow court case challenges city's facial recognition use after launch
January 31, 2020
https://in.reuters.com/article/russ...al-recognition-use-after-launch-idINKBN1ZU1XX

A Russian court on Friday heard a legal challenge to Moscow’s rollout of facial recognition technology over privacy fears, after the final piece of its video surveillance jigsaw fell into place with the awarding of a software contract last month.

Lawyer and activist Alena Popova and opposition politician Vladimir Milov of the Solidarnost party filed a case against Moscow’s Department of Technology (DIT), which manages the capital’s video surveillance programme, seeking to ban the technology’s use at mass events and protests.
The case at Tverskoy District Court is Popova’s second attempt to ban facial recognition technology in Moscow after a November lawsuit was dismissed.
SOFTWARE CONTRACT
Moscow’s facial recognition surveillance began operating in full on Jan. 1 when NtechLab, a private company founded in 2015, won exclusive rights to provide unified video detection services with a 200 million rouble contract, the company confirmed.
The company’s software is now working in 105,000 cameras at entrances to buildings in Moscow alone, a source told Reuters.
Click to expand...

NtechLab CEO Alexander Minin said his firm does not store any private data.
Minin said facial recognition technology is often misunderstood and he said he feels proud to provide a service that makes cities safer.
Click to expand...

mirimir · Feb 1, 2020

Facial images aren't private?

guest · Feb 5, 2020

Google and YouTube send cease-and-desist letter to facial recognition app that helps law enforcement
February 5, 2020
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearv...-and-desist-letter-to-facial-recognition-app/

Google and YouTube have sent a cease-and-desist letter to Clearview AI, a facial recognition app that scrapes images from websites and social media platforms, CBS News has learned. The tech companies join Twitter, which sent a similar letter in January, in trying to block the app from taking pictures from their platforms.

The app is only available to law enforcement to be used to identify criminals, Ton-That said.
But YouTube, which is owned by Google, and Twitter say the company is violating their policies.

"YouTube's Terms of Service explicitly forbid collecting data that can be used to identify a person. Clearview has publicly admitted to doing exactly that, and in response we sent them a cease and desist letter," YouTube Spokesperson Alex Joseph said in a statement to CBS News.
In addition to demanding that Clearview AI stop scraping content from Twitter, the social media platform demanded that the app delete all data already collected from Twitter, according to an excerpt of the cease-and-desist letter given to CBS News.

Facebook and Venmo also said scraping was against their policies, but have so far not sent cease-and-desist letters.
Click to expand...

guest · Feb 5, 2020

Facial recognition company CEO says he doesn’t need permission to use your face
February 5, 2020
https://thenextweb.com/artificial-i...s-he-doesnt-need-permission-to-use-your-face/

The CEO of facial recognition company Clearview AI, Hoan Ton-That, today gave his first network television interview on “CBS This Morning.” During the brief conversation Ton-That told news-anchor Errol Burnett that he believed he had a First Amendment right to access, scrape, and store billions of files containing images of people’s faces.

Ton-That’s argument is that, as US citizen, he has the right to do whatever he wants with any data that’s publicly available online. And he’s chosen to build facial recognition software for law enforcement with that data.

Clearview AI, formerly known as Smartcheckr, wasn’t originally founded to service the law enforcement community. It apparently hoped to enter the retail space first, but ethical concerns lead companies to shy away from Clearview’s products.
Today Clearview claims it works with more than 600 law enforcement agencies, but that number may not hold up under scrutiny.
Click to expand...

guest · Feb 6, 2020

Facial recognition moves into a new front: schools
February 6, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/facial-recognition-moves-into-a-new-front-schools/

Jim Shultz tried everything he could think of to stop facial recognition technology from entering the public schools in Lockport, a small city 20 miles east of Niagara Falls. He posted about the issue in a Facebook group called Lockportians. He wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times. He filed a petition with the superintendent of the district, where his daughter is in high school.
But a few weeks ago, he lost.

The district, said Shultz, 62, “turned our kids into lab rats in a high-tech experiment in privacy invasion.”
The decision underscores how facial recognition is spreading across the country and being deployed in new ways in the United States, as public officials turn to the technology in the name of public safety.

“Subjecting 5-year-olds to this technology will not make anyone safer, and we can’t allow invasive surveillance to become the norm in our public spaces,” said Stefanie Coyle, education counsel for the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Click to expand...

guest · Feb 6, 2020

Facebook adds itself to the list of companies demanding Clearview cease scraping its websites
Startup has been told to stay off YouTube and Google and now Instagram and Facebook
February 6, 2020
https://www.techspot.com/news/83900...list-companies-demanding-clearview-cease.html

A hot potato: Clearview AI has found itself in a sticky legal situation by allowing law enforcement access to a facial recognition database full of images it has scraped from the internet. Tech companies are distancing themselves from the service by demanding the company stop collecting data from their websites.

Facebook has become the latest company to "demand" that Clearview AI stop scraping its platforms for its facial recognition database. The social media giant has sent the company several letters asking it to stop using user data from Facebook and Instagram but has not yet issued a formal cease and desist letter.

"Scraping people's information violates our policies," a spokesperson for Facebook told CBSNews on Thursday. "Which is why we've demanded that Clearview stop accessing or using information from Facebook or Instagram."
The company maintains that it is above-board on the data that it collects.
As Google pointed out, there is a big difference between indexing websites, which it does with the website owner's permission, and scraping images and information on private individuals without their consent.
Click to expand...

mood said: ↑

Google and YouTube send cease-and-desist letter to facial recognition app that helps law enforcement
February 5, 2020
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearv...-and-desist-letter-to-facial-recognition-app/
Click to expand...

Updated:

Last Updated Feb 5, 2020 6:52 PM EST

Editor's note: After the publication of this story, Venmo sent a cease and desist letter to Clearview AI and Facebook provided more information about its communication with the company. This story has been updated to reflect those changes.
Click to expand...

deBoetie · Feb 6, 2020

I do hope there are some legal grounds under copyright legislation so that they can get hammered under a class action suit - they're making money from copyrighted images without adding any obvious creative additions.

Minimalist · Feb 7, 2020

The Coronavirus Effect: Facial Recognition Useless Due to Face Masks

The face masks used by a growing number of the Chinese are rendering facial recognition systems across the country useless, according to a report.
Click to expand...

https://news.softpedia.com/news/the...nition-useless-due-to-face-masks-529129.shtml

Log in or Sign up

Facial recognition is here to stay. And we should all probably accept it

Krusty Registered Member

guest Guest

hawki Registered Member

Soft Life Registered Member

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

ronjor Global Moderator

hawki Registered Member

xxJackxx Registered Member

guest Guest

Tarnak Registered Member

guest Guest

ronjor Global Moderator

guest Guest

guest Guest

hawki Registered Member

guest Guest

mirimir Registered Member

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

deBoetie Registered Member

Minimalist Registered Member

Log in or Sign up

Facial recognition is here to stay. And we should all probably accept it

Krusty Registered Member

guest Guest

hawki Registered Member

Soft Life Registered Member

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

ronjor Global Moderator

hawki Registered Member

xxJackxx Registered Member

guest Guest

Tarnak Registered Member

guest Guest

ronjor Global Moderator

guest Guest

guest Guest

hawki Registered Member

guest Guest

mirimir Registered Member

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

deBoetie Registered Member

Minimalist Registered Member

Useful Searches