Hundreds of police departments in the US use Clearview AI

Hundreds of police departments in the US use Clearview AI, the software that tries to identify suspects and witnesses by comparing them to a database of billions of photos online. In the US, prosecutors and defense both use the software.

These hundreds of police forces have made a total of almost a million searches via the software, reports BBC based on an interview with the founder of Clearview. The software has a database of 30 billion photos of people that it has collected online without permission. Companies in the US are not allowed to use the software, but police departments are. As far as we know, Clearview is not in use in Europe.

In the US, Clearview is also used in court by prosecutors and defense, but there are no figures on how often this happens. The software compares a photo that a user uploads against a database. It reportedly contains more than three billion people. The software then tries to find a match based on facial recognition.

Due to the unlawful use of those photos and violations of privacy, the company has already received high fines in several countries. This happened, among other things, in France. The Italian privacy regulator imposed a fine of 20 million euros on the company in March. Fines from the British and Greek privacy watchdogs followed later.

Clearview AI. Source: CBS News