Clearview AI built a massive facial recognition database by scraping 30 billion photos from Facebook and other social media platforms without users’ permission, which law enforcement has accessed nearly a million times since 2017[1].
The company markets its technology to law enforcement as a tool “to bring justice to victims,” with clients including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. However, privacy advocates argue it creates a “perpetual police line-up” that includes innocent people who could face wrongful arrests from misidentification[1:1].
Major social media companies like Facebook sent cease-and-desist letters to Clearview AI in 2020 for violating user privacy. Meta claims it has since invested in technology to combat unauthorized scraping[1:2].
While Clearview AI recently won an appeal against a £7.5m fine from the UK’s privacy watchdog, this was solely because the company only provides services to law enforcement outside the UK/EU. The ruling did not grant broad permission for data scraping activities[2].
The risks extend beyond law enforcement use - once photos are scraped, individuals lose control over their biometric data permanently. Critics warn this could enable:
- Retroactive prosecution if laws change
- Creation of unauthorized AI training datasets
- Identity theft and digital abuse
- Commercial facial recognition systems without consent[1:3]
Sources:
I claimed my name fory Facebook account when it first came out, but I’ve never posted anything in it, especially any photos of my face.
I thought Facebook was a bad, creepy idea from the beginning.
I have never posted pictures on Facebook either, and have likewise always considered it extremely reckless for everybody else to put all of their information on there without even any protections in law and mechanisms of enforcement.
The federal government just streamlined purchasing information from data brokers, before every agency bought it piecemeal and they paid for the same information twice oftentimes. Now they basically buy everything and distribute it to the agencies that want it in an end run around the Bill of Rights. No warrants, no judges involved. Let alone probable cause or even reasonable suspicion for mass collection of data. https://theintercept.com/2025/05/22/intel-agencies-buying-data-portal-privacy/
Dumbfucks
It is also a brazen violation of the Fourth Amendment of the American Constitution. Using third parties to collect data on citizens without warrants or judicial oversight is a rejection of the highest laws they barely pretend to follow.
So they pirated data from Facebook for their own benefit?
Well, if the shoe fits…
Not me. FB banned me. All my data is deleted. I confirmed through a friend at Meta that tried to help me get it back. My shit was burned and destroyed. Fuck you, Zuck!
Unfortunately you likely still have a shadow account :(
May I ask what they banned you for?
Most everyone will give the authorities the benefit of the doubt, be it government or business, and assume these enforcement actions are in good faith, and if they were wrong that it was a mistake on their part not intentional misapplication of their rules for ad hoc reasons other than their stated reasons.
Reasons like government agencies sending lists of accounts to ban for reasons unrelated to why you are getting violated.
There was a post by some Ai racist account. Calling for a Civil War if Trump lost the election. And I posted “I would be happy to meet you traitors on the field of battle any day.” Thats what they popped me for. I was getting sick of the deranged posts being allowed. And since they were not removing the posts. I made a stupid comment.
I think that’s called “winning” lol
Clearview AI was founded in 2017 by Hoan Ton-That and Richard Schwartz after transferring the assets of another company, SmartCheckr, which the pair originally founded in 2017 alongside Charles C. Johnson.[12][4] The company was founded in Manhattan after the founders met at the Manhattan Institute.[1] The company initially raised $8.4 million from investors including Kirenaga Partners and Peter Thiel
Of course Thiel is involved. That guy should really be not around anymore.
He should at least have “DO NOT DEVELOP MY APP” tatooed on his forehead.
Thiel is scum and needs to pass away for his crimes instigating a fascist police state.
The worst part is you can’t opt out as a full real human. You can only opt out one image at a time. So you’ll never know what they have to complete the job.
Dazzle camoflauge makeup, lets all be juggalos
I’m 4 Faygos ahead of you
You also can’t opt out of other people sharing your shit.
I assure you, many people can and do opt of being full real humans and it is often because of the monsters who work at Clearview and their customers who make this planet and reality itself a really unacceptable place to be trapped in.
I deleted my Facebook account a long time ago. And I don’t gave my face on Instagram anyway (it’s the sad Windows BSOD face)
Not to be a Debbie Downer but if you have friends they may be on Facebook and they’re taking pictures and you’re in them.
People look at me strangely when I ask them not to take pictures of me but I’m really insistent about it.
Have been since I got off Facebook a decade ago.
You can try to explain to these chucklefucks until you’re blue in the face that as bad as things are now an even bigger issue is what can happen in the future but they just don’t fucking get it.
“So what if they serve me ads” says stupid mcchucklefuck as they’re rounded up thirty years from now for ethnic cleansing based ten thousand Facebook photos.
Or not. Like - it’s impossible to predict the future but that’s the whole point - no one has any fucking idea so why engage in a practice which provides you fucking nothing but carries with it full unforgiving weight of that jagged question mark?
An ongoing reign of terror by a one party state run by the worst people in cooperation with the plutocracy is all but inevitable now.
The succession fight to our dear leader is the only real chance to take it back, but we still have the same worthless opposition in charge, chosen to be weak, to not offer reform, and to be constitutionally opposed to building and running a real political machine that could take the government from this Republican machine fixing to rig the elections every way they can.
Someone with selfies on a chat? Congrats, you are part of 30 billion winners 🏆
For now on I treat everyone with a cellphone like a cop. This actually makes my life way easier.
Congress needs to create stricter privacy laws. With heavy penalties besides a slap on the wrist. The digital you is just exploited in the name if profits regardless of consequences or your say.
Our authorities and politicians want us to be vulnerable so they can see everything we are doing, and doing so they make us vulnerable to every other organized actor, groups working for business, foreign government, intelligence agencies, criminal groups, Etc.
That would be a popular reform to offer in 2028 if we could somehow get some candidates that did not live up the back side of the plutocracy.
Do you honestly think the US Congress gives a damn about us?
Not all, but if there is pressure. There are those that would push for it.
That is from 2023.
Yes, but I don’t believe that now in 2025 are less logged images, but more, because improved AI since than. If you use Meta or any other Zuckerbot crap, you can request that it’s AI redact an Curriculum Vitae with photo from you with a simple click, complete for free, as nice service.
The date is relevant so people don’t think it’s some new Trump thing that just happened. No problem with posting the link but I think it’s best to include “(2023)” in the title.
_
Me and my victims feel much more safe now.
Glad me and family are not on social media.
How I wish my friends and colleagues weren’t. Sometimes I don’t have the heart to ask them not to post pictures with my face online.
i knew i would eventually rue the day i joined social media because my ex-spouse forced the issue by making a facebook account for us; i just never knew that it would be because of this.
My producer, Neigsendoig, had a few pictures of him from when he was younger be on the internet, because he had no clue about this. He’s probably blackmailable via said pictures now.
Cool and normal
