Clearview AI’s “Nightmare Scenario” Surveillance Business Under Legal Threat

Clearview AI constructed a surveillance database from “more than three billion images . . . scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites” without the consent or knowledge of the people whose faces appear in the images. A Buzzfeed investigation revealed that thousands of employees at law enforcement agencies across the U.S. ran thousands of searches through the program, “often without the knowledge of the public or even their own departments.” Major tech companies have demanded that Clearview stop scraping images from their platforms, and multiple lawsuits alleging violations of biometric privacy laws—such as those filed by activists, the ACLU, and multistate class action plaintiffs—are pending against the company. And a judge recently rejected Clearview’s argument that its surveillance database was protected by the First Amendment. Wondering if your local police department used Clearview? Check here.