Error-prone facial recognition leads to another wrongful arrest

The Detroit Police Department (DPD) is once again under scrutiny as a new lawsuit emerges, revealing that another innocent person has been wrongly arrested due to a flawed facial recognition match.

Porcha Woodruff, an African American woman who was eight months pregnant at the time, is the sixth individual to come forward and report being falsely accused of a crime because of the controversial technology utilised by law enforcement.

Woodruff was accused of robbery and...

7 August 2023 | Applications

Clearview AI used by US police for almost 1M searches

Facial recognition firm Clearview AI has revealed that it has run almost a million searches for US police.

Facial recognition technology is a controversial topic, and for good reason. Clearview AI's technology allows law enforcement to upload a photo of a suspect's face and find matches in a database of billions of images it has collected.

Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That disclosed in an interview with the BBC that the firm has scraped 30 billion images from platforms such...

28 March 2023 | Applications

Italy’s facial recognition ban exempts law enforcement

Italy has banned the use of facial recognition, except for law enforcement purposes.

On Monday, the country’s Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) issued official stays to two municipalities – the southern Italian city of Lecce and the Tuscan city of Arezzo – over their experiments with biometrics technologies.

The agency banned facial recognition systems using biometric data until a specific law governing its use is...

15 November 2022 | Applications

UK fines Clearview AI £7.5M for scraping citizens’ data

Clearview AI has been fined £7.5 million by the UK’s privacy watchdog for scraping the online data of citizens without their explicit consent.

The controversial facial recognition provider has scraped billions of images of people across the web for its system. Understandably, it caught the attention of regulators and rights groups from around the world.

In November 2021, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) imposed a potential fine of just over £17...

23 May 2022 | Applications

Zoom receives backlash for emotion-detecting AI

Zoom has caused a stir following reports that it’s developing an AI system for detecting emotions.

The system, first reported by Protocol, claims to scan users’ faces and their speech to determine their emotions.

Zoom detailed the system more in a blog post last month. The company says ‘Zoom IQ’ will be particularly useful for helping salespeople improve their pitches based on the emotions of call participants.

Naturally, the system is seen as rather...

19 May 2022 | Applications

Clearview AI agrees to restrict sales of its faceprint database

Clearview AI has proposed to restrict sales of its faceprint database as part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The controversial facial recognition firm caused a stir due to scraping billions of images of people across the web without their consent. As a result, the company has faced the ire of regulators around the world and numerous court cases.

One court case filed against Clearview AI was by the ACLU in 2020, claiming that it violated...

10 May 2022 | Applications

AI in the justice system threatens human rights and civil liberties

The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee has determined the proliferation of AI in the justice system is a threat to human rights and civil liberties.

A report published by the committee today highlights the rapid pace of AI developments that are largely happening out of the public eye. Alarmingly, there seems to be a focus on rushing the technology into production with little concern about its potential negative impact.

Baroness Hamwee, Chair of the Justice...

30 March 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

Ukraine harnesses Clearview AI to uncover assailants and identify the fallen

Ukraine is using Clearview AI’s facial recognition software to uncover Russian assailants and identify Ukrainians who’ve sadly lost their lives in the conflict.

The company’s chief executive, Hoan Ton-That, told Reuters that Ukraine’s defence ministry began using the software on Saturday.

Clearview AI’s facial recognition system is controversial but indisputably powerful—using billions of images scraped from the web to identify just about anyone. Ton-That...

14 March 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

Clearview AI is close to obtaining a patent despite regulatory crackdown

Clearview AI is reportedly just a bank transfer away from receiving a US patent for its controversial facial recognition technology.

Politico reports that Clearview AI has been sent a “notice of allowance” by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The notice means that it will be granted the patent once it pays the administration fees.

Clearview AI offers one of the most powerful facial recognition systems in the world. In the wake of the US Capitol raid, Clearview AI...

6 December 2021 | Artificial Intelligence

Clearview AI could be fined £17M from UK privacy watchdog

Clearview AI is back in hot water, this time from the UK's Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The controversial facial recognition giant has caught the attention of global privacy regulators and campaigners for its practice of scraping personal photos from the web for its system without explicit consent.

Clearview AI is expected to have scraped over 10 billion photos.

“Common law has never recognised a right to privacy for your face,” Clearview AI...

30 November 2021 | Companies