Clearview AI , the notorious facial recognition company which haspartneredwith over 2,400 practice of law enforcement agencies across the U.S , is about to have apatentfor what it describe as a first of its variety , “ lookup locomotive for faces . ”
Politico , which was the first todiscoverthe patent primitively filed in August 2020 , determined the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had sent Clearview a notice of valuation reserve last week . That imply Clearview essentially has the patent in the bag so long as it ante up its administrative fees . And with well over $ 38 millionraisedso far in fundingaccording toCrunchbase , paying the bill should n’t be a problem .
In an consultation with Politico , Clearview CEO Hoan Ton - That exact his troupe ’s peter would represent the first of its form to use “ bombastic - ordered series net data . ” That interpret to , the first facial realisation service to scratch million of photos from societal media and other publicly available database , almost always without users ’ consent . That sweeping database of faces includes somewhere around 10 billion images , allot toTon - That .
Photo: David McNew (Getty Images)
Privacy counsellor and researchers oppose the letters patent and worry it could normalize Clearview ’s datum altercate practices before lawmakers have a luck to go on meaningful information privacy regulations constraining the technology .
“ The part that they ’re looking to protect is exactly the part that ’s the most problematic , ” Amnesty International investigator Matt Mahmoudi told Politico . “ They are patenting the very part of it that ’s in encroachment of outside human right law . ”
Though ahandfulof cities and some states have pass statute law limiting the use of facial recognition , the U.S. still lack a comprehensive federal privacy standard . Nonetheless , patents around facial recognition generally are maturate . Between 2015 and 2019 , the USPTO reportedly grant around 5,000 patent connect to the technology , Politico notes .
In a Tweet , writer and former Facebook investor Roger McNameedescribedClearview ’s travail as , “ a perfect instance of our broken patent / copyright system . ”
And while Clearview recentlytoldCNET it does not intend on make a consumer - ground level version of its products , the patent filing includes details that seem to go beyond the scope of traditional law enforcement , like line or geological dating .
The patent comes as Clearview continues to solidify itself as one of the hot new peter for U.S. law enforcement despite small meaningful Union data privateness oversight . A series of BuzzFeedinvestigationsconducted earlier show just how prevalent Clearview has become , noting individuals at 1,803 public agencies had used the technology in the last twelvemonth . The FBI , Department of Homeland Security and ICE have all once called themselves Clearview clients .
At the same clip , public opposition against Clearview ( and facial recognition generally ) has grown . Just last week , the UK ’s Information Commissioner ’s Office provisionallyfinedthe company £ 17 million for allegedly offend UK data point protection Pentateuch . That ruling fall week after Australia ( the place of birth of Ton - That)orderedClearview to cease information scrap in the body politic after make up one’s mind it had transgress the country ’s privacy protection .
Before that , the company waspressuredto retreat from Canada last year travel along a pair of Union investigation into its concern . concealment groups in Austria , France , Greece , Italy , and the UK have acquire sound natural process against the party and charge complaints with their several regulator . Private companies have pushed back against Clearview as well . Google and Youtube , alongwith LinkedIn , Twitter , and Venmo , all post cease and refrain orders to Clearview in 2020 demanding the company give up scraping images from its platforms without the consent of participating companies or their user .
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