"The
case underscores with greater vigor than ever the need for restrictions
on facial recognition technology. But putting limits on what the police
or private businesses can do with a tool such as Clearview’s won’t stop
bad actors from breaking them. There also need to be limits on whether a
tool such as Clearview’s can exist in this country in the first place.
Top
platforms’ policies generally prohibit the sort of data-scraping
Clearview has engaged in, but it’s difficult for a company to protect information that’s on the open Web. Courts have also ruled against platforms
when they have tried to go after scrapers under existing copyright or
computer fraud law — and understandably, as too-onerous restrictions
could hurt journalists and public-interest groups.
Privacy legislation is a more promising area for action, to prevent third parties
including
Clearview from assembling databases such as these in the first
place, whether they’re filled with faces or location records or credit
scores. That will take exactly the robust federal framework Congress has
so far failed to provide, and a government that’s ready to enforce it."
