Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the clearly-there's-a-problem dept.

'Chilling': Facial recognition firm Clearview AI hits watchdog groups with subpoenas:

Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition company that scrapes public images from social media to aid law enforcement probes, has subpoenaed internal documents from some of the groups that first exposed its activities.

The firm served subpoenas in August to civil society coalition Open The Government, its policy analyst Freddy Martinez and the police accountability nonprofit that he’d previously founded, Lucy Parsons Labs — demanding any correspondence they’d had with journalists about Clearview and its leaders, as well as information they’d uncovered about the company and its founders in public records requests, over the last four years.

The subpoenas, obtained by POLITICO, could draw the groups into lengthy court battles and, they argue, dissuade others from taking on Clearview or other companies working on potentially problematic technologies.

David Brody, counsel and senior fellow for privacy and technology at the nonprofit Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the move could be seen as an attempt to deter the advocacy groups, and journalists, from future investigations.

[...] Authorities have been using Clearview’s software for several years to try to match images in government databases and surveillance footage with billions of personal photos posted to the internet. Privacy, human rights and civil liberties advocates have long raised alarm about facial recognition technology as both intrusive and biased. It has been shown to disproportionately misidentify women and people of color.

Clearview's attorney Andrew J. Lichtman said in a statement that “Clearview AI is vigorously defending itself against claims in multi-district litigation and therefore has served subpoenas to appropriate parties relating to its defense.”


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:14PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:14PM (#1182348) Journal

    It's the most obvious strategy. Make the bastards defend themselves, instead of sitting idly, and fending off their attacks.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @08:07AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @08:07AM (#1182666)

      Yes. Use the court system as your personal bodyguard, I'm sure they like that very much.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 29 2021, @12:35PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 29 2021, @12:35PM (#1182708) Journal
        It doesn't matter what "they" like. Clearview will play these games until they get burned. Countersuing is how you burn them legally by making harassing lawsuits more expensive than they're worth.
  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:22PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday September 28 2021, @06:22PM (#1182351) Journal

    Who served the subpoenas? The "Firm"? There's no judge involved here?

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday September 28 2021, @07:16PM (6 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 28 2021, @07:16PM (#1182390) Journal

    Attention January 6 rioters: maybe THIS is the kind of thing you should get riled up about. Especially when you toss around words like 'tyranny' and 'traitors'. (referring to people in government who were just doing their jobs, including Republicans who were doing their jobs)

    Much better than getting riled up about the outcome of a peaceful election.

    This type of thing is what we should be afraid of.

    It's not which party is in control. It is how did we even get here? How was this allowed to happen so quietly?

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @07:24PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @07:24PM (#1182395)

      There's one thing you gotta understand about the *January 6 rioters*, all they want is to chase all the niggers, spiks, and chinks out, or least keep them behind a fence, out of sight, until they need to have their butts wiped.

      I don't know why we don't have the balls to chase the *January 6 rioters* out, or at least off the damn plane

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Tuesday September 28 2021, @07:35PM (2 children)

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 28 2021, @07:35PM (#1182404)
        Those peeps weren't there to be racist, no need to ascribe that behaviour to them.
        --
        🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @08:14PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @08:14PM (#1182416)

          Those peeps weren't there to be racist, no need to ascribe that behaviour to them.

          No, they were already racist before they got there.

          • (Score: 4, Touché) by Tork on Tuesday September 28 2021, @08:23PM

            by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 28 2021, @08:23PM (#1182420)

            Maybe so maybe no but in this context it's about as appropriate as criticizing them for not wanting a second season of Firefly. It might apply but isn't relevant to "Janury 6th Rioters".

            You have PLENTY to criticize them for, like the entire reason they were there, no need to drag in unrelated shit.

            --
            🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @09:54PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @09:54PM (#1182460)

        January 6th insurrectionists! What a bunch of losers.

        If we're going by the common english language definition and not weird US law

        They were all T R A I T O R S.

        You get to be called a patriot when you actually have evidence for the crimes you are going all treasonous violent insurrection over.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @12:16AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @12:16AM (#1182496)

    seems a reasonable expectation of privacy for a person going about their life somewhat in public.

    If you do something to call attention to yourself, then you get attention. Otherwise, not so much.
    Drawing attention, even in public is a choice.

    Hard to see how a needle in a computerized haystack can be anything even close?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @01:25AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @01:25AM (#1182526)

      > Hard to see how a needle in a computerized haystack can be anything even close?

      Close to what? It seems like you might have a point here, but I can't suss it out from your choice of words.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 29 2021, @02:19AM

      by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday September 29 2021, @02:19AM (#1182551) Homepage

      Face masks suddenly seem a lot more appealing... preferably topped with a nice reflective shield.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @01:51AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @01:51AM (#1182538)

    Two responses spring to mind, countersue to oppose the subpoenas, and if that fails then publicly release ALL the the information they have, every little speculation about how dirty Clearview is, everything nasty anyone EVER said about them.

    If a court orders you to tell, it can't be libel can it?

(1)