Clearview AI Facial Recognition
Hacked - Sued - Getting Grilled by Congress

Clearview AI, the world’s scariest facial recognition company, can’t even keep its own data secure

Clearview AI has recently attracted criticism from Congress for its cavalier use of facial recognition technology.

Clearview AI, the controversial and secretive facial recognition company, just experienced its first major data breach — a scary prospect considering the sheer amount and scope of personal information in its database, as well as the fact that access to it is supposed to be restricted to law enforcement agencies.

According to a memo sent to its customers which was obtained by the Daily Beast, an intruder gained “unauthorized access” to the company’s client list, its number of user accounts, and a number of searches its customers have conducted. That client list might be particularly sensitive, as Clearview claims it works with hundreds of federal and state law enforcement agencies. (A BuzzFeed News report said those numbers are inflated.)

The good news is that there is no evidence that Clearview’s database of 3 billion photos was hacked. But the fact that the company could be breached at all is worrisome enough. Clearview says it obtained these photos by scraping publicly available images from all over the internet. The company’s software uses proprietary facial recognition technology to help law enforcement agencies identify suspects by matching their images with those in the database. redcode.com

Clearview AI Facial Recogniton Database Hacked

Entire Client Files Stolen

A new facial recognition company, which claims to be used by over 600 law enforcement agencies, has suffered a data breach, according to the company.

Clearview AI confirmed with Fox News that its entire client list was stolen in the breach. According to the company, someone gained access to a list of all of Clearview’s customers, the number of accounts used by those customers and the number of searches they have conducted.

The software, first outed in a New York Times investigation earlier this year, claims to identify anyone with just a single image by instantly running an image through its database of over 3 billion internet photos. Law enforcement agencies had been using the app in secret, and have reported how accurate and helpful the technology has been in identifying suspects.

This breach is significant in that privacy advocates, and some law enforcement officials, have voiced cybersecurity concerns about the brand new app’s potential vulnerability to hacking. Clearview AI stopped short of calling this incident a hack.

Gurbir Grewal, the attorney general of New Jersey, has temporarily banned the application in the state's police departments, citing cybersecurity and privacy concerns, despite the fact that the application already has been used by one department to help identify a pedophile.

Two weeks ago, a class action lawsuit was filed in New York federal court against Clearview AI claiming the company is illegally taking people’s biometric information without their consent.

The Clearview AI software runs images through its database, which the company claims contain more than 3 billion photos pulled from websites.

“It searches only publicly available material out there,” Ton-That said in February. “This is public data. We're not taking any personal data ... things that are out there on the Internet, in the public domain.”

However, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Venmo and LinkedIn have sent cease-and-desist letters to Clearview AI in an effort to shut the app down. The companies said photos users put on their accounts are not public domain and taking people’s photos, a practice known as scraping, violates their terms of service. foxnews.com

Clearview AI Class Action Lawsuit Over Privacy Concerns - Willful, Reckless and Negligent

Scraping Internet Images isn't Facial Recognition

The new suit, filed Thursday, seeks class-action status and $5 million in damages for what it calls willful, reckless or negligent violations of biometrics laws in Illinois by Clearview and CDW.

A new lawsuit seeking class action status has been filed against Clearview AI in federal court in SDNY. Interestingly the named plaintiffs, who have lived in Illinois, are suing under the Illinois' Biometric Privacy Act. They're suing in NY because Clearview is based there.

It's fighting Clearview's collection, storage and use of biometric information without written consent, which is illegal, according to the lawsuit, which was spotted earlier Thursday by BuzzFeed.

There are now three potential class action lawsuits against Clearview in Illinois, Virginia, and now New York. foxnews.com

Here is full complaint

Clearview facial recognition app may pose 'chilling' privacy risk, senator says
Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts issued an open letter Thursday demanding answers from the creator of a controversial facial recognition app used by US law enforcement. The letter to the CEO of Clearview AI, Hoan Ton-That, follows a New York Times investigation into the software company and its app, which can identify people by comparing their photo to a database of pictures scraped from social media and other sites. cnet.com