No Place To Hide In Era Of Facial Recognition

No Place To Hide - On The Path To Put Every Human In Facial Recognition Database

 BN FRANK/ACTIVIST POST 

Despite increasing opposition to facial recognition technology, significant risks associated with its use, companies like Clearview AI continue to create it and promote its use.

"Clearview AI is telling investors it is on track to have 100 billion facial photos in its database within a year, enough to ensure 'almost everyone in the world will be identifiable,' according to a financial presentation from December obtained by The Washington Post," the Post reported today. There are an estimated 7.9 billion people on the planet.

The December presentation was part of an effort to obtain new funding from investors, so 100 billion facial images is more of a goal than a firm plan. However, the presentation said that Clearview has already racked up 10 billion images and is adding 1.5 billion images a month, the Post wrote. Clearview told investors it needs another $50 million to hit its goal of 100 billion photos, the Post reported:

The company said that its "index of faces" has grown from 3 billion images to more than 10 billion since early 2020 and that its data collection system now ingests 1.5 billion images a month.

With $50 million from investors, the company said, it could bulk up its data collection powers to 100 billion photos, build new products, expand its international sales team and pay more toward lobbying government policymakers to "develop favorable regulation."

As the Post noted, "Clearview has built its database by taking images from social networks and other online sources without the consent of the websites or the people who were photographed. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and YouTube have demanded the company stop taking photos from their sites and delete any that were previously taken. Clearview has argued its data collection is protected by the First Amendment."

The increase in photos could be paired with an expanded business model. Clearview "wants to expand beyond scanning faces for the police, saying in the presentation that it could monitor 'gig economy' workers and is researching a number of new technologies that could identify someone based on how they walk, detect their location from a photo or scan their fingerprints from afar," the Post wrote.

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