Clearview AI facial recognition app's use increases, fueled mostly by efforts of law enforcement agencies who use the software to identify those who participated in the Capitol protest rally.
Officials of the controversial Clearview AI facial recognition app reports an increase in the use of the software after law enforcement agencies doubled their efforts to identify those who protested in the rally at Capitol Hill on January 6 during Congress' certification of Electoral Votes. Law enforcement agencies, including the police, reveal they have in their possession online photos and videos of unmasked protesters during the Capitol rally.
Use of Clearview AI facial recognition tech spiked as law enforcement seeks to identify Capitol mob
The company’s CEO said use of its tech was up 26 percent the day after the January 6th attack https://t.co/vgG8HbUvPp pic.twitter.com/iOwSXUCwj4 — Cleavon MD (@Cleavon_MD) January 10, 2021
According to Hoan Ton-That, the chief executive officer of the Clearview AI facial recognition app, law enforcement agencies are increasingly becoming dependent on their software as they intensify efforts in identifying those involved in the deadly Capitol protest rally. "There was a 26 percent increase of searches over our usual weekday search volume," said Clearview's Ton-That.
The Clearview AI facial recognition app gained attention, most of it negative, early in 2020 when the New York Times published a news article entitled "The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It." The article said that the company made the tool accessible to hundreds of law enforcement organizations and could end a person's ability to stroll on the streets anonymously. Local Florida cops, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security were among those increasingly using the Clearview AI facial recognition app to identify Capitol protesters involved in the deadly demonstration. Some industry observers call the app's functions, which allow Clearview's clients to match individual faces to billions of images in the company's database, as "alarming" and "dystopian."
Reports say that many local law enforcement agencies responded to the request for assistance of the FBI in identifying dozens of faces allegedly involved in the deadly Capitol protest. Miami Police Department's Real Time Crime Center is among those fueling the increase in the use of Clearview AI facial recognition app as they answer the call of the FBI to identify Capitol protesters involved in the deadly demonstration. Two detectives who performed the search using the Clearview AI facial recognition app said the software made one potential match only within the first hour of searching.
Armando Aguilar, Miami Police Department assistant chief, revealed they are scouring images from online sites. "We are poring over whatever images or videos are available from whatever sites we can get our hands on." The police department is among those fueling the increase in the use of the Clearview AI facial recognition app as law enforcement agencies try to identify protesters involved in the deadly Capitol demonstration. Authorities, however, are quick to erase privacy fears as they claim they only use facial recognition as an investigative tool, not use it as evidence to charge someone.
