Controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI, is reportedly developing surveillance cameras and augmented reality glasses despite mounting public scrutiny over the company’s ethics.
According to documents obtained by Buzzfeed News, Clearview AI is exploring the possibility of making surveillance cameras that use computer vision software to identify subjects by cross-referencing a database.
Its database of photos has been the subject of controversy after it was found to be scraping pictures from Facebook and Instagram without people’s consent. Those pictures were used to train its facial recognition algorithm.
The company has also partnered with at least 600 law enforcement agencies across the US. Those companies use its database to scan for suspect matches.
Facial recognition software company Clearview AI is working on hardware that utilizes its facial recognition software to help support surveillance cameras according to a new report (Stock)
Clearview’s cameras are reportedly being tested by two companies and are being developed under a division of Clearview called Insight Camera.
The company has yet to publicly link itself to Insight, but a Buzzfeed investigation was able to connect the two by assessing code on both companies’ websites. In each, similar code contained references to Clearview’s servers.
Buzzfeed reports that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), a labor union representing teachers in New York City, and the real estate firm Rudin Management, which is also based in New York, are the two companies who tested Cleaview’s hardware.
A representative for the UFT told Buzzfeed that it was using the cameras to prevent individuals who had made threats against the union from entering its offices.
UFT says that it didn’t use Clearview’s entire 3 billion-photo database but instead operated on a ‘close system’ of faces.
Rudin Management confirmed that it was testing Clearview’s product but did not elaborate on why. A spokesperson said the company decided not proceed further with deploying the technology.
‘We beta test many products to see if they would be additive to our portfolio and tenants,’ a spokesperson told Buzzfeed.
‘In this case we decided it was not and we do not currently use the software.’
Clearview AI has come under scrutiny for its practices of scraping pictures from social media as well as its partnerships with law enforcement
In addition to a new crop of AI-equipped security cameras, Clearview is also reportedly interested in augmented reality glasses.
Buzzfeed reports that it is using hardware made by Rochester, New York-based company, Vuzix, though its not immediately clear what the glasses would be used for.
Couple with Clearview’s AI, it’s possible they could be worn by police to identify criminals or other persons-of-interest.
News of Clearviews plans on hardware come just a week after the company reported that a hacker had gained access to its systems.
The company didn’t specify how the security breach had occurred nor who might have been responsible, and it claimed its servers and internal network hadn’t been compromised.
‘Unfortunately, data breaches are part of life in the 21st century,’ Clearview attorney Tor Ekeland told The Daily Beast, who broke the story.
‘Our servers were never accessed. We patched the flaw, and continue to work to strengthen our security.’
Clearview has amassed a database of over 3 billion photos from sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and even Venmo, which its proprietary AI will scan to try and match people in photos uploaded by their clients
Clearview AI software allows its customers to identify people by uploading photos to the company’s servers, where they’re compared against a database of more than 3 billion photos pulled from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and even Venmo.
The service was reportedly used by at least 600 different law enforcement agencies in the last year, including the Chicago Police Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI.
The company originally worked on smaller projects including a 2013 initiative with New Jersey Attorney General’s office to analyze driver’s license photos to identify people using the same photo for multiple identities.
The company has since expanded its business to include general law enforcement activity, among other projects.
In 2013, Clearview worked with the New Jersey attorney general’s office on an ID fraud detection program, helping to identify instances where the same person was trying to use multiple identities, though in that instance they relied on state-provided photos, not ones taken from online sources like Facebook and Twitter
HOW DOES FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY WORK?
Facial recognition software works by matching real time images to a previous photograph of a person.
Each face has approximately 80 unique nodal points across the eyes, nose, cheeks and mouth which distinguish one person from another.
A digital video camera measures the distance between various points on the human face, such as the width of the nose, depth of the eye sockets, distance between the eyes and shape of the jawline.
A different smart surveillance system (pictured) can scan 2 billion faces within seconds has been revealed in China. The system connects to millions of CCTV cameras and uses artificial intelligence to pick out targets. The military is working on applying a similar version of this with AI to track people across the country
This produces a unique numerical code that can then be linked with a matching code gleaned from a previous photograph.
A facial recognition system used by officials in China connects to millions of CCTV cameras and uses artificial intelligence to pick out targets.
Experts believe that facial recognition technology will soon overtake fingerprint technology as the most effective way to identify people.