Law enforcement officers have used Clearview AI's facial recognition database nearly a million times, Hoan Ton-That, the company's CEO, told the BBC.

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 ↩︎