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Senator fears Clearview AI facial recognition could be used on protesters:
Sen. Edward Markey has raised concerns that police and law enforcement agencies have access to controversial facial recognition app Clearview AI in cities where people are protesting the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died two weeks ago while in the custody of Minneapolis police.
[...] "As demonstrators across the country exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting racial injustice, it is important that law enforcement does not use technological tools to stifle free speech or endanger the public," Markey said in a letter to Clearview AI CEO and co-founder Hoan Ton-That.
The threat of surveillance could also deter people from "speaking out against injustice for fear of being permanently included in law enforcement databases," he said.
Markey, who has previously hammered Clearview AI over its sales to foreign governments, use by domestic law enforcement and use in the COVID-19 pandemic, is now asking the company for a list of law enforcement agencies that have signed new contracts since May 25, 2020.
It's also being asked if search traffic on its database has increased during the past two weeks; whether it considers a law enforcement agency's "history of unlawful or discriminatory policing practices" before selling the technology to them; what process it takes to give away free trials; and whether it will prohibit its technology from being used to identify peaceful protestors.
[...] Ton-That said he will respond to the letter from Markey. "Clearview AI's technology is intended only for after-the-crime investigations, and not as a surveillance tool relating to protests or under any other circumstances," he said in an emailed statement.
Previously:
(2020-06-09) IBM Will No Longer Offer, Develop, or Research Facial Recognition Technology(2020-05-08) Clearview AI to Stop Selling Controversial Facial Recognition App to Private Companies
(2020-04-20) Security Lapse Exposed Clearview AI Source Code
(2020-04-18) Some Shirts Hide You from Cameras
(2020-03-13) Vermont Sues Clearview, Alleging “Oppressive, Unscrupulous” Practices
(2020-02-28) Clearview AI's Facial Recognition Tech is Being Used by US Justice Department, ICE, and the FBI
(2020-02-26) Clearview AI Reports Entire Client List Was Stolen
(2020-02-24) Canadian Privacy Commissioners to Investigate "Creepy" Facial Recognition Firm Clearview AI
(2020-02-06) Clearview AI Hit with Cease-And-Desist from Google, Facebook Over Facial Recognition Collection
(2020-01-22) Clearview App Lets Strangers Find Your Name, Info with Snap of a Photo, Report Says
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:17PM (1 child)
I was just thinking, as Runaway is often wont to do, that facial recognition might be handy when faced with hundreds of "deputized" Homeland Security Agents (Der Heimatschutzabteilung) who have no identification or badges or numbers or authority, so it is hard to distinguish them from cosplaying militia bozos.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Wednesday June 10 2020, @11:03PM
Let me make a prediction. Quite soon during a large protest a group of unidentified snipers on roofs will shoot both - police and protestors. Than the revolution really starts. (this playbook was used through out, most recently in Ukraine)
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.