Clearview OpenAI Playground text

Clearview AI is aiming to win over more police forces by offering its facial recognition technology for free.

The company has been mired in controversy over its use of billions of photos scraped from social media and other sources without the subjects' knowledge or consent. Now, it's offering its technology to police forces for free in the hopes of winning over more customers. The move is likely to reignite concerns over the use of facial recognition technology, which has been criticized for its potential to invade people's privacy and be used to target marginalized groups. In a blog post, Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That said the company is "committed to providing our technology to law enforcement agencies at no cost." "We believe that our technology can be a powerful tool in the fight against crime, and we want to do everything we can to make it available to the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe," he said. Ton-That said the company will provide its technology to any police force that signs a non-disclosure agreement. It's not clear how many police forces have already signed up for the program, or if any have used the technology.

GPT-3, by Open AI. “Davinci-002 Response.” Open AI Playground, 14 Apr. 2022, https://beta.openai.com/playground.

Facial recognition company Clearview AI seeks first big deals, discloses research chief

Clearview AI, whose search engine for faces has become an unrivaled police tool, this year is aiming to win its first big U.S. government contracts and expand its team by a third even as the startup fights challenges in the courts and Congress, its chief executive told Reuters.

“Facial Recognition Company Clearview AI Seeks First Big Deals, Discloses Research Chief.” CNBC, 22 Feb. 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/22/facial-recognition-company-clearview-ai-seeks-first-big-deals-discloses-research-chief.html.

Facial recognition’s ‘dirty little secret’: Millions of online photos scraped without consent

 

Facial recognition can log you into your iPhone, track criminals through crowds, and identify loyal customers in stores...

Solon, Olivia. “Facial Recognition’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: Millions of Online Photos Scraped without Consent.” CNBC, 12 Mar. 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/12/millions-of-photos-scraped-without-consent-for-facial-recognition.html.

Rules around facial recognition and policing remain blurry

...That’s left companies like Amazon and Microsoft, who enacted moratoriums to give Congress time to come up with fair rules of the road, in limbo. IBM, by contrast, said it would exit the business entirely...                                

Palmer, Lauren Feiner, Annie. “Rules around Facial Recognition and Policing Remain Blurry.” CNBC, 12 June 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/12/a-year-later-tech-companies-calls-to-regulate-facial-recognition-met-with-little-progress.html.

HCDE PhD student Os Keyes receives inaugural Ada Lovelace Fellowship from Microsoft Research

Os Keyes, a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Human-Centered Design & Engineering, has received an inaugural Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship award to support their research on facial recognition software.

                        

“HCDE Ph.D. Student Os Keyes Receives Inaugural Ada Lovelace Fellowship from Microsoft Research.” Human-Centered Design & Engineering, 17 Jan. 2019, https://www.hcde.washington.edu/news/hcde-phd-student-os-keyes-receives-inaugural-ada-lovelace-fellowship-from-microsoft-research.

Os Keyes, ph.D. in computer science

Doctoral student, Human-Centered Design & Engineering

Big data, Engineering and design, Gender and sexuality, Information science, Race, equity and identity

okeyes@uw.edu

Site

Pronouns: they/them

Expertise: Gender, disability, artificial intelligence, data ethics, facial recognition, medical AI

Recipient of the Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship.

             

“Os Keyes.” UW News, https://www.washington.edu/news/people/os-keyes/. Accessed 14 Apr. 2022.

“Os Keyes.” UW News, https://www.washington.edu/news/people/os-keyes/. Accessed 14 Apr. 2022.

AI software defines people as male or female. That's a problem

...The 29-year-old graduate student is dark-haired, tattooed, and openly transgender, using the pronouns "they" or "them." Facial analysis software, however, typically assigns each face it analyzes one of two labels: male or female...

Business, Rachel Metz, CNN. “AI Software Defines People as Male or Female. That’s a problem.” CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/tech/ai-gender-recognition-problem/index.html. Accessed 14 Apr. 2022.