This App Is a Dangerous Invasion of Your Privacy—and the FBI Uses It; Popular Mechanics, January 22, 2020

Courtney Linder, Popular Mechanics; This App Is a Dangerous Invasion of Your Privacy—and the FBI Uses It

"Even Google Wouldn't Build This

When companies like Google—which has received a ton of flack for taking government contracts to work on artificial intelligence solutions—won't even build an app, you know it's going to cause a stir. Back in 2011, former Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said a tool like Clearview AI's app was one of the few pieces of tech that the company wouldn't develop because it could be used "in a very bad way."

Facebook, for its part, developed something pretty similar to what Clearview AI offers, but at least had the foresight not to publicly release it. That application, developed between 2015 and 2016, allowed employees to identify colleagues and friends who had enabled facial recognition by pointing their phone cameras at their faces. Since then, the app has been discontinued.

Meanwhile, Clearview AI is nowhere near finished. Hidden in the app's code, which the New York Times evaluated, is programming language that could pair the app to augmented reality glasses, meaning that in the future, it's possible we could identify every person we see in real time.

Early Pushback

Perhaps the silver lining is that we found out about Clearview AI at all. Its public discovery—and accompanying criticism—have led to well-known organizations coming out as staunchly opposed to this kind of tech.

Fight for the Future tweeted that "an outright ban" on these AI tools is the only way to fix this privacy issue—not quirky jewelry or sunglasses that can help to protect your identity by confusing surveillance systems."

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It; The New York Times, January 18, 2020

Kashmir Hill, The New York Times; The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It

"Even if Clearview doesn’t make its app publicly available, a copycat company might, now that the taboo is broken. Searching someone by face could become as easy as Googling a name. Strangers would be able to listen in on sensitive conversations, take photos of the participants and know personal secrets. Someone walking down the street would be immediately identifiable — and his or her home address would be only a few clicks away. It would herald the end of public anonymity.

Asked about the implications of bringing such a power into the world, Mr. Ton-That seemed taken aback.

“I have to think about that,” he said. “Our belief is that this is the best use of the technology.”"