Clearview AI app that came under the spotlight when it was investigated that the app has scraped millions of images from the public website including social media for its Facial Recognition system.
On Wednesday Clearview AI claimed that its facial recognition system was hacked which allowed the intruders to access the list of the company’s clients and Buzzfeed News has acquired the data. According to the documents acquired and verified by Buzzfeed, some 2,900 institutions in total have utilized the service since its launch. Out of those, 2,228 entities have performed nearly 500,000 searches.
Thousands of public law enforcement agencies and private companies are named in the client logs including Best Buy and Macy’s, the Department of Justice including ICE, the CBP, Interpol, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, as well as a number of foreign states like the UAE.
It also reported that Clearview AI has grown to at least 26 countries outside the United States and has engaged national law enforcement agencies, government bodies, and police forces in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
In India, the only entity that has signed up for the software was the Vadodara City Police in the western state of Gujarat and the company’s records show that the department signed up last month and had only run a handful of searches.
Police Commissioner Anupam Singh Gahlaut responded with a short text and did not respond to further questions.
“We have not started yet.”
Developing more to follow…
