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posted by martyb on Thursday January 23 2020, @04:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the Privacy dept.

Clearview app lets strangers find your name, info with snap of a photo, report says:

What if a stranger could snap your picture on the sidewalk then use an app to quickly discover your name, address and other details? A startup called Clearview AI has made that possible, and its app is currently being used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the US, including the FBI, says a Saturday report in The New York Times.

The app, says the Times, works by comparing a photo to a database of more than 3 billion pictures that Clearview says it's scraped off Facebook, Venmo, YouTube and other sites. It then serves up matches, along with links to the sites where those database photos originally appeared. A name might easily be unearthed, and from there other info could be dug up online.

The size of the Clearview database dwarfs others in use by law enforcement. The FBI's own database, which taps passport and driver's license photos, is one of the largest, with over 641 million images of US citizens.

[...] The startup said in a statement Tuesday that its "technology is intended only for use by law enforcement and security personnel. It is not intended for use by the general public."

Law enforcement officers say they've used the app to solve crimes from shoplifting to child sexual exploitation to murder. But privacy advocates warn that the app could return false matches to police and that it could also be used by stalkers and others. They've also warned that facial recognition technologies in general could be used to conduct mass surveillance.


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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 23 2020, @03:50PM (4 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday January 23 2020, @03:50PM (#947459) Journal
    Nobody can sign a waiver on my behalf - and everyone knows damn well not to even THINK of posting anything about me on Facebook. I've granted permission to traditional media (for example, tv interviews) but Facebook? I catch wind you've posted pics we're going to have a discussion. The only exception I would make is for when I'm doing something in the public interest and you've asked me.

    Time people stood up for their rights. Rights are like muscle or grey matter - use it or lose it.

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  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday January 24 2020, @10:43AM (3 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday January 24 2020, @10:43AM (#947892)

    > everyone knows damn well not to even THINK of posting anything about me on Facebook.

    Let me repeat:
    Note that WhatsApp cannot be used without giving the application permission to scrape your phone's address book, so any colleague or friend who uses WhatsApp and has your data in their address book has already shared your information.

    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 24 2020, @12:17PM (2 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday January 24 2020, @12:17PM (#947905) Journal

      Nobody is forcing you to use WhatApp. So what's your point? I don't know anyone who uses it, and the people I know put only my first name in their contact information anyway - we don't even for the most part know each other's last names. It's not like someone is going to come up to me and say "we've been working together for 3 years now - what's your last name?"

      They don't need it because they won't be searching for me on Facebook or Whatever because I don't use them. It's a non-problem that is easy to avoid - don't use social media and you and others won't be tagging you in pictures.

      Not that it matters - without a social media profile it doesn't matter if they have your name and address - their tools are targeted to social media, and the relationships laid out there. They're not going to be scraping soy lentils info here because it doesn't contain relationship data. Or pics. I've posted my name and address enough times to show that "doxxing " is a non-concern, same as when everybody had their name, address, and phone number in the white pages and nobody worried about it.

      That information, without context, is pretty much useless. I have no intention of returning to the USA to work, so who's going to have a reason to run me through facial recognition anyway? At the mall? Won't work because I now wear my UV-blocking sunglasses indoors at any place with fluorescent lighting to cut down the glare. Same as when I work as a volunteer. So good luck with scraping those non-existing social media posts for my face.

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      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday January 24 2020, @12:37PM (1 child)

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday January 24 2020, @12:37PM (#947908)

        > I don't know anyone who uses it

        Fair enough.

        Pretty much everyone I know uses it.

        > the people I know put only my first name in their contact information anyway

        Well done if you are successful at avoiding the darkness. For most people, even in this situation there is uniquely identifiable data (your phone number, typically); and it is trivial to tie this to a real person - for example, VISA sell your data (it is in the Terms of Service).

        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 24 2020, @02:01PM

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday January 24 2020, @02:01PM (#947926) Journal

          Your phone number isn't necessarily unique to you. Making that assumption would also require that they know you're single, and even then it's not a guarantee, so good luck trying to use the phone number as a unique identifier.

          Also, as people approach retirement it's recommended that they either use only a debit card or at most one credit card "for emergencies." The biggest emergency expenses are medical, which just don't exist in countries with single payer health and drug plans with either no copay or a fixed levy on every citizen.

          Here, all medical expenses are covered, and everyone pays less than $100 a month for drugs, no matter how much or little they cost, so there aren't any "unexpected " costs.

          So really, why is someone approaching retirement still screwing around with 10 credit cards? Debit cards here work just fine for online purchases since they have a CCV number on the back, same as credit cards.

          It's not like you're raising a family and juggling all sorts of bills any more. Most of your expenses are fixed or vary within a small range.

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