YouTube wants Clearview AI to stop scraping images for facial recognition

Video site YouTube and PayPal’s payment service Venmo have sent a cease and desist letter to Clearview AI, the app that US police forces use to find a person’s name and address based on a photo.

Facebook has also sent letters to Clearview AI, but that is not yet a cease and desist, a letter in which one company instructs another company to stop doing something. YouTube and Venmo find Clearview AI violating their terms, CBS News reports. Twitter previously instructed Clearview AI to stop scraping its service.

Twitter, YouTube and Venmo want Clearview AI to remove all data it has collected from its platforms and stop using their services to collect data from now on.

It was revealed two weeks ago that American police services use Clearview AI. The software makes it possible to find a name and address by entering a photo. The software works by combining scraped images from social media and video sites to build a database of people’s profiles with data and images.