US government records list 11 federal agencies that use the technology, including the FBI, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and US Customs and Border Protection.Īccording to BuzzFeed News, several police departments that tested Clearview’s software through a free trial decided against paying to use it. The technology has been used by hundreds of police departments in the US, according to a confidential customer list acquired by BuzzFeed News Ton-That says the company has 3,100 law enforcement and government customers.
It remains unclear how accurately the new techniques work, but experts say they could increase the risk that a person is wrongly identified and could exacerbate biases inherent to the system.Ĭlearview’s tech potentially improves authorities’ ability to match faces to identities, by letting officers scour the web with facial recognition. These capabilities could make Clearview’s technology more attractive but also more problematic. The first takes a blurred image and sharpens it using machine learning to envision what a clearer picture would look like the second tries to envision the covered part of a person’s face using machine learning models that fill in missing details of an image using a best guess based on statistical patterns found in other images. Ton-That says it is developing new ways for police to find a person, including “deblur” and “mask removal” tools. Some of Clearview’s new technologies may spark further debate. “The people who are worried about it, they are very vocal, and that's a good thing, because I think over time we can address more and more of their concerns,” he says. He says he believes most people accept or support the idea of using facial recognition to solve crimes. Facebook and Twitter have demanded that Clearview stop scraping their sites. The ACLU sued Clearview in Illinois under a law that restricts the collection of biometric information the company also faces class action lawsuits in New York and California. Critics say the company is eroding personal privacy. Clearview’s actions sparked public outrage and a broader debate over expectations of privacy in an era of smartphones, social media, and AI.
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