facial recognition

cops’-favorite-face-image-search-engine-fined-$33m-for-privacy-violation

Cops’ favorite face image search engine fined $33M for privacy violation

AI, Artificial Intelligence, clearview.ai, European Union, face image data, face scans, facial recognition, gdpr, General Data Protection Regulation, mass surveillance, online surveillance, police surveillance, Policy / /
Cops’ favorite face image search engine fined $33M for privacy violation

A controversial facial recognition tech company behind a vast face image search engine widely used by cops has been fined approximately $33 million in the Netherlands for serious data privacy violations.

According to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA), Clearview AI “built an illegal database with billions of photos of faces” by crawling the web and without gaining consent, including from people in the Netherlands.

Clearview AI’s technology—which has been banned in some US cities over concerns that it gives law enforcement unlimited power to track people in their daily lives—works by pulling in more than 40 billion face images from the web without setting “any limitations in terms of geographical location or nationality,” the Dutch DPA found. Perhaps most concerning, the Dutch DPA said, Clearview AI also provides “facial recognition software for identifying children,” therefore indiscriminately processing personal data of minors.

Training on the face image data, the technology then makes it possible to upload a photo of anyone and search for matches on the Internet. People appearing in search results, the Dutch DPA found, can be “unambiguously” identified. Billed as a public safety resource accessible only by law enforcement, Clearview AI’s face database casts too wide a net, the Dutch DPA said, with the majority of people pulled into the tool likely never becoming subject to a police search.

“The processing of personal data is not only complex and extensive, it moreover offers Clearview’s clients the opportunity to go through data about individual persons and obtain a detailed picture of the lives of these individual persons,” the Dutch DPA said. “These processing operations therefore are highly invasive for data subjects.”

Clearview AI had no legitimate interest under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the company’s invasive data collection, Dutch DPA Chairman Aleid Wolfsen said in a press release. The Dutch official likened Clearview AI’s sprawling overreach to “a doom scenario from a scary film,” while emphasizing in his decision that Clearview AI has not only stopped responding to any requests to access or remove data from citizens in the Netherlands, but across the EU.

“Facial recognition is a highly intrusive technology that you cannot simply unleash on anyone in the world,” Wolfsen said. “If there is a photo of you on the Internet—and doesn’t that apply to all of us?—then you can end up in the database of Clearview and be tracked.”

To protect Dutch citizens’ privacy, the Dutch DPA imposed a roughly $33 million fine that could go up by about $5.5 million if Clearview AI does not follow orders on compliance. Any Dutch businesses attempting to use Clearview AI services could also face “hefty fines,” the Dutch DPA warned, as that “is also prohibited” under the GDPR.

Clearview AI was given three months to appoint a representative in the EU to stop processing personal data—including sensitive biometric data—in the Netherlands and to update its privacy policies to inform users in the Netherlands of their rights under the GDPR. But the company only has one month to resume processing requests for data access or removals from people in the Netherlands who otherwise find it “impossible” to exercise their rights to privacy, the Dutch DPA’s decision said.

It appears that Clearview AI has no intentions to comply, however. Jack Mulcaire, the chief legal officer for Clearview AI, confirmed to Ars that the company maintains that it is not subject to the GDPR.

“Clearview AI does not have a place of business in the Netherlands or the EU, it does not have any customers in the Netherlands or the EU, and does not undertake any activities that would otherwise mean it is subject to the GDPR,” Mulcaire said. “This decision is unlawful, devoid of due process and is unenforceable.”

But the Dutch DPA found that GDPR applies to Clearview AI because it gathers personal information about Dutch citizens without their consent and without ever alerting users to the data collection at any point.

“People who are in the database also have the right to access their data,” the Dutch DPA said. “This means that Clearview has to show people which data the company has about them, if they ask for this. But Clearview does not cooperate in requests for access.”

Dutch DPA vows to investigate Clearview AI execs

In the press release, Wolfsen said that the Dutch DPA has “to draw a very clear line” underscoring the “incorrect use of this sort of technology” after Clearview AI refused to change its data collection practices following fines in other parts of the European Union, including Italy and Greece.

While Wolfsen acknowledged that Clearview AI could be used to enhance police investigations, he said that the technology would be more appropriate if it was being managed by law enforcement “in highly exceptional cases only” and not indiscriminately by a private company.

“The company should never have built the database and is insufficiently transparent,” the Dutch DPA said.

Although Clearview AI appears ready to defend against the fine, the Dutch DPA said that the company failed to object to the decision within the provided six-week timeframe and therefore cannot appeal the decision.

Further, the Dutch DPA confirmed that authorities are “looking for ways to make sure that Clearview stops the violations” beyond the fines, including by “investigating if the directors of the company can be held personally responsible for the violations.”

Wolfsen claimed that such “liability already exists if directors know that the GDPR is being violated, have the authority to stop that, but omit to do so, and in this way consciously accept those violations.”

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Cop busted for unauthorized use of Clearview AI facial recognition resigns

clearview.ai, face scans, facial recognition, law enforcement, police misconduct, police surveillance, Policy, public safety, surveillance technology / /

Secret face scans —

Indiana cop easily hid frequent personal use of Clearview AI face scans.

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Cop busted for unauthorized use of Clearview AI facial recognition resigns

An Indiana cop has resigned after it was revealed that he frequently used Clearview AI facial recognition technology to track down social media users not linked to any crimes.

According to a press release from the Evansville Police Department, this was a clear “misuse” of Clearview AI’s controversial face scan tech, which some US cities have banned over concerns that it gives law enforcement unlimited power to track people in their daily lives.

To help identify suspects, police can scan what Clearview AI describes on its website as “the world’s largest facial recognition network.” The database pools more than 40 billion images collected from news media, mugshot websites, public social media, and other open sources.

But these scans must always be linked to an investigation, and Evansville police chief Philip Smith said that instead, the disgraced cop repeatedly disguised his personal searches by deceptively “utilizing an actual case number associated with an actual incident” to evade detection.

Smith’s department discovered the officer’s unauthorized use after performing an audit before renewing their Clearview AI subscription in March. That audit showed “an anomaly of very high usage of the software by an officer whose work output was not indicative of the number of inquiry searches that they had.”

Another clue to the officer’s abuse of the tool was that most face scans conducted during investigations are “usually live or CCTV images”—shots taken in the wild—Smith said. However, the officer who resigned was mainly searching social media images, which was a red flag.

An investigation quickly “made clear that this officer was using Clearview AI” for “personal purposes,” Smith said, declining to name the officer or verify if targets of these searchers were notified.

As a result, Smith recommended that the department terminate the officer. However, the officer resigned “before the Police Merit Commission could make a final determination on the matter,” Smith said.

Easily dodging Clearview AI’s built-in compliance features

Clearview AI touts the face image network as a public safety resource, promising to help law enforcement make arrests sooner while committing to “ethical and responsible” use of the tech.

On its website, the company says that it understands that “law enforcement agencies need built-in compliance features for increased oversight, accountability, and transparency within their jurisdictions, such as advanced admin tools, as well as user-friendly dashboards, reporting, and metrics tools.”

To “help deter and detect improper searches,” its website says that a case number and crime type is required, and “every agency is required to have an assigned administrator that can see an in-depth overview of their organization’s search history.”

It seems that neither of those safeguards stopped the Indiana cop from repeatedly scanning social media images for undisclosed personal reasons, seemingly rubber-stamping the case number and crime type requirement and going unnoticed by his agency’s administrator. This incident could have broader implications in the US, where its technology has been widely used by police to conduct nearly 1 million searches, Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That told the BBC last year.

In 2022, Ars reported when Clearview AI told investors it had ambitions to collect more than 100 billion face images, ensuring that “almost everyone in the world will be identifiable.” As privacy concerns about the controversial tech mounted, it became hotly debated. Facebook moved to stop the company from scraping faces on its platform, and the ACLU won a settlement that banned Clearview AI from contracting with most businesses. But the US government retained access to the tech, including “hundreds of police forces across the US,” Ton-That told the BBC.

Most law enforcement agencies are hesitant to discuss their Clearview AI tactics in detail, the BBC reported, so it’s often unclear who has access and why. But the Miami Police confirmed that “it uses this software for every type of crime,” the BBC reported.

Now, at least one Indiana police department has confirmed that an officer can sneakily abuse the tech and conduct unapproved face scans with apparent ease.

According to Kashmir Hill—the journalist who exposed Clearview AI’s tech—the disgraced cop was following in the footsteps of “billionaires, Silicon Valley investors, and a few high-wattage celebrities” who got early access to Clearview AI tech in 2020 and considered it a “superpower on their phone, allowing them to put a name to a face and dig up online photos of someone that the person might not even realize were online.”

Advocates have warned that stronger privacy laws are needed to stop law enforcement from abusing Clearview AI’s network, which Hill described as “a Shazam for people.”

Smith said the officer disregarded department guidelines by conducting the improper face scans.

“To ensure that the software is used for its intended purposes, we have put in place internal operational guidelines and adhere to the Clearview AI terms of service,” Smith said. “Both have language that clearly states that this is a tool for official use and is not to be used for personal reasons.

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New compact facial-recognition system passes test on Michelangelo’s David

3D surface imaging, facial recognition, nanotechnology, optics, Science / /

A face for the ages —

Flatter, simpler prototype system uses 5-10 times less power than smartphone tech.

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A new lens-free and compact system for facial recognition scans a bust of Michelangelo’s David and reconstructs the image using less power than existing 3D surface imaging systems.

Enlarge / A new lens-free and compact system for facial recognition scans a bust of Michelangelo’s David and reconstructs the image using less power than existing 3D-surface imaging systems.

W-C Hsu et al., Nano Letters, 2024

Facial recognition is a common feature for unlocking smartphones and gaming systems, among other uses. But the technology currently relies upon bulky projectors and lenses, hindering its broader application. Scientists have now developed a new facial recognition system that employs flatter, simpler optics that also requires less energy, according to a recent paper published in the journal Nano Letters. The team tested their prototype system with a 3D replica of Michelangelo’s famous David sculpture, and found it recognized the face as well as existing smartphone facial recognition.

The current commercial 3D imaging systems in smartphones (like Apple’s iPhone) extract depth information via structured light. A dot projector uses a laser to project a pseudorandom beam pattern onto the face of the person looking at a locked screen. It does so thanks to several other built-in components: a collimator, light guide, and special lenses (known as diffractive optical elements, or DOEs) that break the laser beam apart into an array of some 32,000 infrared dots. The camera can then interpret that projected beam pattern to confirm the person’s identity.

Packing in all those optical components like lasers makes commercial dot projectors rather bulky, so it can be harder to integrate for some applications such as robotics and augmented reality, as well as the next generation of facial recognition technology. They also consume significant power. So Wen-Chen Hsu, of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and the Hon Hai Research Institute in Taiwan, and colleagues turned to ultrathin optical components known as metasurfaces for a potential solution. These metasurfaces can replace bulkier components for modulating light and have proven popular for depth sensors, endoscopes, tomography. and augmented reality systems, among other emerging applications.

Schematic of a new facial recognition system using a camera and meta surface-enhanced dot projector.

Enlarge / Schematic of a new facial recognition system using a camera and meta surface-enhanced dot projector.

W-C Hsu et al., Nanoletters, 2024

Hsu et al. built their own depth-sensing facial recognition system incorporating a metasurface hologram in place of the diffractive optical element. They replaced the standard vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a photonic crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL). (The structure of photonic crystals is the mechanism behind the bright iridescent colors in butterfly wings or beetle shells.) The PCSEL can generate its own highly collimated light beam, so there was no need for the bulky light guide or collimation lenses needed in VCSEL-based dot projector systems.

The team tested their new system on a replica bust of David, and it worked as well as existing smartphone facial recognition, based on comparing the infrared dot patterns to online photos of the statue. They found that their system generated nearly one and a half times more infrared dots (some 45,700) than the standard commercial technology from a device that is 233 times smaller in terms of surface area than the standard dot projector. “It is a compact and cost-effective system, that can be integrated into a single chip using the flip-chip process of PCSEL,” the authors wrote. Additionally, “The metasurface enables the generation of customizable and versatile light patterns, expanding the system’s applicability.” It’s more energy-efficient to boot.

Nano Letters, 2024. DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c05002  (About DOIs).

Listing image by W-C Hsu et al., Nano Letters, 2024

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