Clearview AI is an American
facial recognition company, providing software to companies,
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
, universities, and individuals. The company's algorithm matches faces to a database of more than 20 billion images
indexed from the Internet, including social media applications.
Founded by
Hoan Ton-That
Hoan Ton-That is an Australian entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Clearview AI, a United States-based technology company that creates facial recognition software.
Career
Ton-That says that he began using computers ...
and
Richard Schwartz, the company maintained a low profile until late 2019, when its usage by law enforcement was reported on.
Multiple reports identified Clearview's association with
far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
personas dating back to 2016, when the company claimed to sever ties with two employees.
In January 2020,
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
sent a
cease and desist
A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...
letter and requested the deletion of all collected data. This was followed by similar actions by
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
(via
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
) and
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
in February.
Clearview sells access to its database to law enforcement agencies and has 3,100 active users including the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
and the
Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
according to ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''.
However, contrary to Clearview's claims that its service is sold only to law enforcement, a
data breach
A data breach is a security violation, in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so. Other terms are unintentional information disclosure, data leak, info ...
in early 2020 revealed that numerous commercial organizations were on Clearview's customer list. A spokesperson for the company claimed its valuation to be more than $100 million. In 2021, ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine named Clearview AI as one of the 100 most influential companies of the year.
In March 2022 Clearview AI was fined $20M by the Italian Privacy Regulator ("Garante della privacy") in violation of the GDPR and has been required to delete all Italian records from its database. Similar fines and deletion orders followed in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, and the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
.
In May 2022 Clearview agreed to settle a 2020 lawsuit in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
from the
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
, which prohibited the sale of its facial recognition database to private individuals and businesses.
Clearview paid $250,000 in legal fees and agreed to limit its 20 billion facial photo database to government agencies.
History
Clearview operated in near secrecy until the release of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' exposé titled "The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It" in January 2020.
[ Citing the article, over 40 tech and civil rights organizations including ]Color of Change
Color of Change is a progressive nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization in the United States. It was formed in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in order to use online resources to strengthen the political voice of African Amer ...
, Council on American–Islamic Relations
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. It is headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with regional offices nationwide. Through civil rights actions, media relations, civic enga ...
, Demand Progress
Demand Progress is an internet activist-related entity encompassing a 501(c)4 arm sponsored by the Sixteen Thirty Fund and a 501(c)3 arm sponsored by the New Venture Fund. It specializes in online-intensive and other grassroots activism to suppor ...
, Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center in Washington, D.C. EPIC's mission is to focus public attention on emerging privacy and related human rights issues. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom o ...
, Fight for the Future
Fight for the Future (often abbreviated fightfortheftr or FFTF) is a nonprofit advocacy organization, advocacy group in the area of digital rights founded in 2011. The group aims to
promote causes related to copyright legislation, as well as onl ...
, Freedom of the Press Foundation
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is a non-profit organization founded in 2012 to fund and support free speech and freedom of the press. The organization originally managed crowd-funding campaigns for independent journalistic organizations, ...
, Media Alliance
Media Alliance is an American media resource and advocacy center for media workers, non-profit organizations, and social justice activists. Through policy work and grassroots organizing, Media Alliance aims to ensure the unfettered flow of infor ...
, National Center for Transgender Equality
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is a nonprofit social equality organization founded in 2003 by transgender activist Mara Keisling in Washington, D.C. The organization works primarily in the areas of policy advocacy and medi ...
, National Hispanic Media Coalition
The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) civil rights organization that was founded to eliminate hate, discrimination, and racism towards the Latino community.
NHMC collaborates with other social justice organizations ...
, National LGBTQ Task Force
The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports ac ...
, Project On Government Oversight
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a Nonpartisanism, nonpartisan non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., Washington, DC, that investigates and works to expose waste, fraud, abuse, and conflicts of interest in the Federal gove ...
, Restore the Fourth
Restore the Fourth is an American 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that seeks to strengthen the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and to eliminate programs that violate it. I ...
, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Woodhull Freedom Foundation, also known as Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, is an American non-profit organization founded in 2003 that advocates for sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. The organization is based in Washington, D.C., U ...
sent a letter to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is an independent agency within the executive branch of the United States government, established by Congress in 2004 to advise the President and other senior executive branch officials to en ...
(PCLOB) and four congressional committees, outlining their concerns with facial recognition and Clearview, asking the PCLOB to suspend the use of facial recognition. The exposé also identified Hoan Ton-That
Hoan Ton-That is an Australian entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Clearview AI, a United States-based technology company that creates facial recognition software.
Career
Ton-That says that he began using computers ...
and Richard Schwartz as the company's founders with investors including Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Fac ...
. It was reported that Ton-That and Schwartz met at the Manhattan Institute
The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (renamed in 1981 from the International Center for Economic Policy Studies) is a conservative American think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs, established in Manhattan in 1978 by Ant ...
.
Early use of Clearview's app was described as a perk given to potential investors in their Series A
A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...
fundraising round. Billionaire John Catsimatidis
John A. Catsimatidis (born September 7, 1948) is an American billionaire businessman and radio talk show host. He is the owner, president, chairman, and CEO of Gristedes Foods, a grocery chain in Manhattan, and the Red Apple Group, a real estat ...
used it to identify someone his daughter dated and piloted it at one of his Gristedes grocery market in New York City to identify shoplifters. Noted far-right "troll king" Charles C. Johnson
Charles Carlisle Johnson (born October 22, 1988) is an American alt-right political activist who was a public figure in the years 2013 to 2019. A self-described "investigative journalist", Johnson is often described as an internet troll and h ...
had an account on Clearview as well as Tor Ekeland and Palmer Luckey
Palmer Freeman Luckey (born September 19, 1992) is an American entrepreneur best known as the founder of Oculus VR and designer of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality ...
. The AI Now Institute linked Clearview with the Banjo surveillance platform, as both have far-right ties, though Banjo does not have the explicit far-right algorithmic goals that Clearview does.
It accelerated a global debate on the regulation of facial recognition technology by governments and law enforcement. Law enforcement officers have stated that Clearview's facial recognition is far superior in identifying perpetrators from any angle than previously used technology. After discovering Clearview AI was scraping images from their site, Twitter sent a cease-and-desist letter, insisting that they remove all images as it is against Twitter's policies. Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
has said they are reviewing the situation, and Venmo
Venmo is an American mobile payment service founded in 2009 and owned by PayPal since 2013. Venmo was aimed at friends and family who wish to split bills, e.g. for movies, dinner, rent, or event tickets etc. Account holders can transfer funds ...
also stated it is against their policies. On February 5 and 6, 2020, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Venmo sent cease and desist letters as it is against their policies. Ton-That responded in an interview with Errol Barnett
Errol Barnett (born 3 April 1983) is a British-born American anchor and national correspondent for CBS News based in New York City after covering the Trump administration for three years while based in Washington D.C. Barnett also anchored '' ...
of ''CBS This Morning
''CBS This Morning'' (''CTM'') is an American morning television program that aired on CBS from November 30, 1987, to October 29, 1999, and again from January 9, 2012, to September 6, 2021. The program was aired from Monday through Saturday. ...
'' that there is a First Amendment right to access public data, identification results were 99.6% accurate. He later stated that Clearview has scraped over 10 billion images from across the web.
In February 2020, multiple sources reported that Clearview AI had experienced a data breach
A data breach is a security violation, in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so. Other terms are unintentional information disclosure, data leak, info ...
, exposing its list of customers. Clearview's attorney, Tor Ekeland stated the flaw was corrected.
In April 2020, ''TechCrunch
TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
'' reported that Mossab Hussein of SpiderSilk, a security firm, discovered Clearview's source code repositories had been exposed with a misconfigured user security setting. This included secret keys and credentials, including cloud storage and Slack tokens. The compiled apps and pre-release apps were accessible, allowing Hussein to run the macOS and iOS apps against Clearview's services. While Ton-That called Hussein's disclosure of the bug extortion, Hussein reported the breach to Clearview but refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement
A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a legal contract or part of a contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish ...
necessary for the program. He also found 70,000 videos in one storage bucket from a Rudin Management apartment building's entrance.
A ''Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' story published in April 2020 identified a Slack channel from 2016 that was created by Charles C. Johnson
Charles Carlisle Johnson (born October 22, 1988) is an American alt-right political activist who was a public figure in the years 2013 to 2019. A self-described "investigative journalist", Johnson is often described as an internet troll and h ...
and Pax Dickinson called WeSearchr taken from a crowd-funding site of the same name. Channel members included Ton-That, Schwartz, Marko Jukic, Tyler Bass and Douglass Mackey who all worked for Smartcheckr, Clearview's original name before rebranding. Mackey was associated with alt-right white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
congressional candidate Paul Nehlen
Paul Nehlen (born May 9, 1969) is an American businessman, white supremacist, retired politician, and former Congressional candidate from Wisconsin. He gained notoriety for his controversial remarks while running in 2016 and 2018 in the Republica ...
. Clearview claimed to have had no knowledge of Mackey's persona, though Mackey was also part of the WeSearchr Slack under his fake name. After Mackey's persona was revealed, Schwartz used a reputation management
Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation managem ...
company to obscure his involvement with Smartcheckr.
In September 2020, it was reported that Clearview had raised $8.625 million in equity sales during a funding round. The company's SEC filing did not disclose investors in the round. Before the deal, Clearview has raised a total of $8.4 million from investors including Kirenaga Partners and Peter Thiel. After the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol
On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-United States President, U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol, U ...
, the Oxford Police Department in Alabama used Clearview's software to run a number of images posted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its public request for suspect information to generate leads for people present during the riot. Photo matches and information were sent to the FBI who declined to comment on its techniques.
In December 2020, the ACLU of Washington sent a letter to Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan
Jenny Anne Durkan (born May 19, 1958) is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and politician who served as the 56th mayor of Seattle, Washington. She is the daughter of Martin Durkan. Durkan is a member of the Democratic Party. Afte ...
, asking her to ban the Seattle Police Department
The Seattle Police Department (SPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the city of Seattle, Washington, United States, except for the campus of the University of Washington, which is under the responsibility of its own police department ...
from using Clearview AI. The letter cited public records retrieved by a local blogger, which showed one officer signing up for and repeatedly logging into the service, as well as corresponding with a company representative. While the ACLU letter raised concerns that the officer's usage violated the Seattle Surveillance Ordinance, an auditor at the City of Seattle Office of the Inspector General argued that the ordinance was designed to address the usage of surveillance technologies by the Department itself, not by an officer without the Department's knowledge.
In April 2021, documents obtained by the Legal Aid Society
The Legal Aid Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit legal aid provider based in New York City. Founded in 1876, it is the oldest and largest provider of legal aid in the United States. Its attorneys provide representation on criminal and civil matt ...
under New York's Freedom Of Information Law demonstrated Clearview's expansive, multi-year collaboration with the NYPD. These records demonstrated, contrary to past NYPD denials, that Clearview provided accounts to numerous NYPD officers, met with senior NYPD leadership, and entered into a vendor contract with the NYPD. Clearview came under renewed scrutiny for enabling officers to conduct large numbers of searches without formal oversight or approval. In on-boarding emails, new users were encouraged to go beyond running one or two searches to " e if you can reach 100 searches".
The company announced its first chief strategy officer, chief revenue officer and chief marketing officer in May 2021. Devesh Ashra, a former deputy assistant secretary with the United States Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...
, became its chief strategy officer. Chris Metaxas, a former executive at LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis Risk Solutions is a global data and analytics company that provides data and technology services, analytics, predictive insights and fraud prevention for a wide range of industries. It is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia (part of ...
, became its chief revenue officer. Susan Crandall, a former marketing executive at LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Motorola Solutions
Motorola Solutions, Inc., is an American video equipment, telecommunications equipment, software, systems and services provider that succeeded Motorola, Inc., following the spinoff of the mobile phone division into Motorola Mobility in 2011. The ...
, became its chief marketing officer. Later that month, the company had numerous legal complaints filed in Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
, Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
and the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
for violating European privacy laws in its method of documenting and collecting Internet data.
In August 2021, Clearview AI announced the formation of an advisory board including Raymond Kelly
Raymond Walter Kelly (born September 4, 1941) is the longest serving Commissioner in the history of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the first man to hold the post for two non-consecutive tenures. According to its website, Kelly ...
, Richard A. Clarke, Rudy Washington, Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams (born in July 9, 1936) is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law and has argued in 13 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Abrams represented ''The New York Times'' ...
, Lee S. Wolosky, and Owen West
Owen West is a United States Marine, banker, and author who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict from 2017 to 2019. His June 6, 2017, nomination for this post was confirmed by a 74–23 vote ...
. The company claimed to have scraped more than 10 billion images in October 2021.
In March 2022, Ton-That told Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
that Ukraine's Ministry of Defence began using Clearview AI's facial recognition technology on March 12, 2022 after the startup "offered to uncover Russian assailants, combat misinformation and identify the dead". Ton-That also claimed that they have "more than 2 billion images from the Russian social media service VKontakte
VK (short for its original name ''VKontakte''; russian: ВКонтакте, meaning ''InContact'') is a Russian online social media and social networking service based in Saint Petersburg. VK is available in multiple languages but it is predomin ...
at its disposal". In April 2022, the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported that Clearview had created over 200 accounts for users at five Ukrainian government agencies, which have conducted more than 5,000 searches, and that Clearview has also translated its app into Ukrainian. Ton-That provided emails from officials of three agencies in Ukraine, confirming that they had used the tool to identify dead soldiers and prisoners of war, as well as travelers in the country.
In May 2022, Clearview AI announced that it would be expanding sales of its facial recognition software to the private-sector (in particular apps and school management systems), scraping images from social media profiles.
Marketing efforts and pushback
Clearview's marketing claimed their facial recognition led to a terrorist arrest. The identification was submitted to the New York Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
tip line, but the NYPD did not use this tip to identify the suspect, and stated they have no institutional relationship with Clearview, though some 'rogue officers' use it. Clearview claims to have solved two other New York cases and 40 cold cases, later stating they submitted them to tip lines.
The company was sent a cease and desist letter from the office of New Jersey Attorney General
The attorney general of New Jersey is a member of the executive cabinet of the state and oversees the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, Department of Law and Public Safety. The office is appointed by the governor of New Jersey, confir ...
Gurbir Grewal
Gurbir Singh Grewal (; born June 23, 1973) is an American attorney and prosecutor who served as the sixty-first attorney general of the State of New Jersey from January 2018 until his resignation in July 2021. Appointed by Governor of New Jersey P ...
after including a promotional video on its website with the images of Grewal. Clearview had claimed that its app played a role in a New Jersey police sting, which Grewal confirmed had been used to identify one of the child predators. He banned the use of Clearview in all 21 counties in New Jersey. Tor Ekeland, a lawyer for Clearview, confirmed the marketing video was taken down the same day.
On March 17, 2020, ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' stated that Clearview was pitching their technology to states for use in contact tracing
In public health, contact tracing is the process of identifying persons who may have been exposed to an infected person ("contacts") and subsequent collection of further data to assess transmission. By tracing the contacts of infected individua ...
to assist with the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. Fight for the Future
Fight for the Future (often abbreviated fightfortheftr or FFTF) is a nonprofit advocacy organization, advocacy group in the area of digital rights founded in 2011. The group aims to
promote causes related to copyright legislation, as well as onl ...
's responded by calling Clearview a cartoonishly shady surveillance vendor, and the idea was met with overall backlash.[
Senator ]Edward J. Markey
Edward John Markey (born July 11, 1946) is an American lawyer, politician, and former Army reservist who has served as the junior United States senator from Massachusetts since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representat ...
wrote Clearview and Ton-That, stating "Widespread use of your technology could facilitate dangerous behavior and could effectively destroy individuals' ability to go about their daily lives anonymously." Markey asked Clearview to detail aspects of its business to understand these privacy, bias, and security concerns. Clearview responded through an attorney, declining to reveal information. In response to this, Markey wrote a second letter, calling their response unacceptable and containing dubious claims, highlighting the concern of Clearview "selling its technology to authoritarian regimes" and possible violations of COPPA
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law, located at ().
The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under Federal ju ...
. Senator Markey wrote his third letter to the company with concerns, stating "this health crisis cannot justify using unreliable surveillance tools that could undermine our privacy rights." Markey asked a series of questions about what government entities Clearview has been talking with, in addition to unanswered privacy concerns.
Senator Ron Wyden
Ronald Lee Wyden (; born May 3, 1949) is an American politician and retired educator serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from Oregon, a seat he has held since 1996 United Stat ...
voiced concerns about Clearview and had meetings with Ton-That cancelled on three occasions.
In May 2022, under the terms of an ACLU settlement, Clearview agreed to a permanent ban from selling its facial recognition database to private companies.
Technology
Clearview states their technology is not for public consumption and meant for law enforcement usage, but their marketing material encouraged users to "run wild" with their use, suggesting searching for family and friends as well as celebrities. Clearview also indicated they were targeting private security firms and marketed to casinos through Clearview's Jessica Medeiros Garrison. Clearview planned expansion to many countries, including Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
, and Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, a cluster that Buzzfeed titles "authoritarian regimes" including United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...
, Qatar
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
, and Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, and General Data Protection Regulation
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in partic ...
-following EU countries including Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
, and Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
.
While Clearview's app is only supposed to be privately accessible to customers, Gizmodo
''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...
found the Android application package in an unsecured Amazon S3
Amazon S3 or Amazon Simple Storage Service is a service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides object storage through a web service interface. Amazon S3 uses the same scalable storage infrastructure that Amazon.com uses to run its e- ...
bucket. In addition to application tracking (Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin.
As o ...
, Crashlytics
Crashlytics was a Boston, Massachusetts-based software company founded in May 2011 by entrepreneurs Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert. Crashlytics helps collecting, analyzing and organizing app crash reports.
Its main product is a software devel ...
), it contains references to Google Play Services (Firebase or AppMeasurement), requests precise phone location data, and appeared to have features for voice search, sharing a free demo account to other users, augmented reality
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...
integration with Vuzix, and sending gallery photos or taking photos from the app itself. There were also references to scanning barcodes on a drivers license and to RealWear.
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
found the application for Apple iOS devices in an unsecured S3 bucket. The instructions showed how to load an enterprise (developer) certificate so the app could be installed without being published on the App Store
An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...
. Clearview's access was suspended, as it was against Apple's terms of service for developers. This "effectively disables the app".
Buzzfeed discovered that Clearview also operates a secondary business, Insight Camera, which provides AI-enabled security cameras. It is targeted at "retail, banking and residential buildings". Two customers have used the technology, United Federation of Teachers
The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is the labor union that represents most teachers in New York City public schools. , there were about 118,000 in-service teachers and 17,000 paraprofessional educators in the union, as well as about 54,000 ...
and Rudin Management.
Accuracy
Documents from Clearview have claimed 98.6% or 100% accuracy while using their standard 99.6% confidence interval
In frequentist statistics, a confidence interval (CI) is a range of estimates for an unknown parameter. A confidence interval is computed at a designated ''confidence level''; the 95% confidence level is most common, but other levels, such as 9 ...
. Clearview provided an October 2019 document to the North Miami Police Department indicating they used a public review panel, consisting of Jonathan Lippman
Jonathan Lippman (born May 19, 1945) is an American jurist who served as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 2009 through 2015. He is currently Of Counsel in the Litigation & Trial Department of Latham & Watkins’ New York office ...
(former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by t ...
, currently at Latham & Watkins
Latham & Watkins LLP is an American multinational law firm. Founded in 1934 in Los Angeles, California, Latham is the second-largest law firm in the world by revenue. As of 2021, Latham is also one of the most profitable law firms in the world ...
, introduced via Richard Schwartz), Nicholas Cassimatis (businessperson), and Aaron Renn (formerly at Manhattan Institute
The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (renamed in 1981 from the International Center for Economic Policy Studies) is a conservative American think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs, established in Manhattan in 1978 by Ant ...
) while using the methodology that ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
used to test Amazon Rekognition. Jacob Snow of the ACLU responded, stating Clearview's test "couldn't be more different than the ACLU's work", pointed out the accuracy flaws and lack of actual racial bias
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
methodology, and objected to Clearview implying that ACLU might endorse their "dangerous and untested surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...
product".
In 2021, Clearview announced that it was developing "deblur" and "mask removal" tools to sharpen blurred images and envision the covered part of an individual's face. These tools would be accomplished using machine learning models that fill in the missing details based on statistical patterns found in other images. Clearview acknowledged that deblurring an image and/or removing a mask could potentially make errors more frequently and would only be used to generate leads for police investigations.
Clearview ranked amongst the top 10 of 300 facial recognition algorithms in an accuracy test by the National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
(NIST). The test determined how accurate Clearview's algorithm was at matching two different photos of the same person and did not test for matching an unknown face to its 10 billion image database. It was completed in October 2021 and was the sole third-party test of the app at the time.
Use
Customer list
Following a data leak of Clearview's customer list, Buzzfeed confirmed that 2,200 organizations in 27 countries have accounts with activity. Some may only have had trial access, and many organizations denied any connection to Clearview.
;;American law enforcement and government
;;Commercial and other non-government entities
;;International law enforcement
Cases
; New Zealand
The New Zealand Police
The New Zealand Police ( mi, Ngā Pirihimana o Aotearoa) is the national police service and principal law enforcement agency of New Zealand, responsible for preventing crime, enhancing public safety, bringing offenders to justice, and maintai ...
used it in a trial after being approached by Clearview's Marko Jukic in January 2020. Jukic said it would have helped identify the Christchurch mosque shooter had the technology been available. During the police's trial they searched for people "of Māori or Polynesian ethnicity", as well as "Irish roof contractors" to determine its bias and accuracy. This raised strong objections once exposed, as neither the users' supervisors or the Privacy Commissioner were aware or approved of its use. After it was revealed by RNZ, Justice Minister
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
Andrew Little stated "I don't know how it came to be that a person thought that this was a good idea", going on to say "It clearly wasn't endorsed, from the senior police hierarchy, and it clearly didn't get the endorsement from the oliceMinister nor indeed from the wider cabinet ... that is a matter of concern."
; Florida
Clearview's technology was used for identifying an individual at a May 30, 2020 George Floyd police violence protest in Miami, Florida. Miami's WTVJ
WTVJ (channel 6) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV (ch ...
confirmed this, as the arrest report only said she was "identified through investigative means". The defendant's attorney did not even know it was with Clearview. Ton-That confirmed its use, noting that it was not being used for surveillance, but only to investigate a crime.
In another Florida case, Clearview's technology was used by defence attorneys to successfully locate a witness, resulting in the dismissal of vehicular homicide charges against the defendant.
Legal challenges
The company's claim of a First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
right to public information has been disputed by privacy lawyers such as Scott Skinner-Thompson and Margot Kaminski, highlighting the problems and precedents surrounding persistent surveillance and anonymity. Former New York City Police Commissioner
The New York City Police Commissioner is the head of the New York City Police Department and presiding member of the Board of Commissioners. The commissioner is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the mayor. The commissioner is responsib ...
and executive chairman of Teneo Risk Chief Bill Bratton
William Joseph Bratton CBE (born October 6, 1947) is an American law enforcement officer and businessman who served two terms as the New York City Police Commissioner (1994–1996 and 2014–2016). He previously served as the Commissioner of th ...
challenged privacy concerns and recommended strong procedures for law enforcement usage in an op-ed in New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
.
After the release of ''The New York Times'' January 2020 article, lawsuits were filed by the states of Illinois, California, Virginia and New York, citing violations of privacy and safety laws. Most of the lawsuits were transferred to New York's Southern District. Two lawsuits were filed in state courts; in Vermont by the attorney general and in Illinois on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
, which cited a statute that forbids the corporate use of residents' faceprints without explicit consent. Clearview countered that an Illinois law does not apply to a company based in New York.
In response to a class action
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
lawsuit filed in Illinois for violating the Biometric Information Privacy Act
Illinois set forth the Biometric Information Privacy Act on October 3, 2008, in an effort to regulate the collection, use, and handling of biometric identifiers and information by private entities. Notably, the Act does not apply to government en ...
(BIPA), in May 2020 Clearview stated that they instituted a policy to stop working with non-government entities and to remove any photos geolocated in Illinois. On May 28, 2020, ACLU and Edelson sued Clearview in Illinois using the BIPA.
Clearview hired Tor Ekeland and Lee Wolosky of Jenner & Block for its legal team.[ Ekeland used ]Section 230
Section 230 is a section of Title 47 of the United States Code that was enacted as part of the United States Communications Decency Act and generally provides immunity for website platforms with respect to third-party content. At its core, Sect ...
in his defense of Clearview in the lawsuit by the Attorney General of Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
. Techdirt
Techdirt is an American Internet blog that reports on technology's legal challenges and related business and economic policy issues, in context of the digital revolution. It focuses on intellectual property, patent, information privacy and cop ...
's Tim Cushing analyzed the arguments, stating "In essence, the lawsuit isn't about objectionable content hosted by Clearview, but objectionable actions by Clearview itself. That's why Section 230 doesn't apply. I'm not sure how the local court will read this, but it would seem readily apparent that Section 230 does not immunize Clearview in this case." The company also hired Paul Clement
Paul Drew Clement (born June 24, 1966) is an American lawyer who served as U.S. Solicitor General from 2004 to 2008 and is known for his advocacy before the U.S. Supreme Court. He established his own law firm, Clement & Murphy, in 2022 after le ...
, a former Solicitor General and former acting United States Attorney General
The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...
to help assuage privacy concerns.
In August 2020, ''The New York Times'' reported that Clearview had hired First Amendment and Pentagon Papers
The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and military ...
lawyer Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams (born in July 9, 1936) is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law and has argued in 13 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Abrams represented ''The New York Times'' ...
. Abrams has argued 13 cases in front of the Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, most notably Citizens United v. FEC
''Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission'', 558 U.S. 310 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It wa ...
, and stated that the issue of privacy rights versus free speech in the First Amendment could reach the Supreme Court.[
In July 2020, Clearview AI announced that it was pulling out of the Canadian market amidst joint investigations into the company and the use of its product by police forces. Daniel Therrien, the ]Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The privacy commissioner of Canada (french: Commissaire à la protection de la vie privée du Canada) is a non-partisan ombudsman and officer of the Parliament of Canada. The commissioner investigates complaints regarding violations of the fed ...
condemned Clearview AI's use of scraped biometric data:
In June 2021, Therrien found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...
had broken Canadian privacy law through hundreds of illegal searches using Clearview AI.
In January 2021, Clearview AI's biometric photo database was deemed illegal in the EU by the Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
data protection authority (DPA). The deletion of a affected person's biometric data was ordered. The authority stated that GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in partic ...
is applicable despite the fact that Clearview AI has no European branch. In March 2020, they had requested Clearview AI's customer list, as data protection obligations would also apply to the customers. The data protection advocacy organization NOYB
NOYB – European Center for Digital Rights (styled as noyb, from "none of your business") is a non-profit organization based in Vienna, Austria established in 2017 with a pan-European focus. Co-founded by Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Ma ...
criticized the DPA's decision as the DPA issued an order protecting only the individual complainant instead of an order banning the collection of any European resident's photos.
In November 2021, Clearview received a provisional notice by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to stop processing its citizens' data citing a range of alleged breaches. The company was also notified of a potential fine of approximately $22.6 million. Clearview claimed that the ICO's allegations were factually inaccurate which it would consider appealing as the company "does not do business in the UK, and does not have any UK customers at this time." The ICO released a statement that a final determination on Clearview would be occur until mid-2022. The BBC reported on 23 May that the company had been fined "more than £7.5m by the UK's privacy watchdog and told to delete the data of UK residents."
In May 2022, Clearview agreed to settle a 2020 lawsuit from the ACLU, which prohibited the sale of its facial recognition database to private individuals and businesses. Clearview paid $250,000 in legal fees and agreed to limit its 20 billion facial photo database to government agencies.[
In May 2022, Clearview was ordered to delete all data belonging to UK residents’ facial recognition data by the country’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (IOC). Additionally, the ICO fined Clearview £7.5 million for failing to follow the UK’s data protection laws. This fine marked the fourth of its type placed on Clearview, after similar orders and fines issued from ]Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, and Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
.
See also
* '' hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn''
References
{{reflist
2017 establishments in New York City
American companies established in 2017
Companies based in Manhattan
Detectives and criminal investigators
Facial recognition software
Internet-related controversies
Mass surveillance