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:


  1. Business Insider - Clearview AI scraped 30 billion images from Facebook and other social media sites ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. BBC - Face search company Clearview AI overturns UK privacy fine ↩︎

  • Cocopanda@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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!

    • hector@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      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.

      • Cocopanda@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        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.