Facial recog firm Clearview hit with complaints in France, Austria, Italy, Greece and the UK
- Reference: 1622112390
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/27/clearview_europe/
- Source link:
The facial recognition company, which is based in the US, claims to have “the largest known database of 3+ billion facial images”. Clearview AI's facial recognition tool is trained on [1]images harvested from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and attempts to match faces fed into its machine learning software with results from its multi-billion picture database. The business then provides a link to the place it found the "match".
[2]Google, Twitter, Facebook and even Venmo all sent cease and desist letters to Clearview AI last year asking that it stop scraping people's photos from their websites. The firm's CEO [3]defended its business model at the time by saying: "Google can pull in information from all different websites. So if it's public and it's out there and could be inside Google's search engine, it can be inside ours as well."
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The US firm was sued last year by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU also [7]sued the US Department of Homeland Security and its law enforcement agencies last month for failing to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests about their use of Clearview's tech.
Although Clearview AI lists mostly US law enforcement agencies as customers on its website and in publicly avowed comments, according to documents cited in the complaint to UK data regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office,
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, the UK National Crime Agency, the Ministry of Defence and several police forces across England all allegedly have registered users with Clearview AI.The complaint also alleges that "images and metadata collected through the scraping process are stored on Clearview’s servers... indefinitely, i.e. even after a previously collected photograph or hosting webpage has been removed or made private."
Data regs
The [9]General Data Protection Regulation applies to anyone that processes personal data on the European market.
Even though Clearview.AI is based solely in the US, the GDPR applies to their activities affecting European residents, eg when scraping pictures of Europeans from the web.
The UK (say it with me) despite Brexit, still has the GDPR implemented via the [10]Data Protection Act (DPA) of 2018 . It first incorporated the law when the UK was a member state, and went on to amend it on 1 January 2021 to be read together with the new "UK-GDPR" rather than the EU GDPR.
The UK-GDPR is almost word for word the same text, and that is purposeful, because any significant divergence from the EU GDPR could affect data sharing adequacy rulings post-Brexit.
One at a time
Back in January this year,
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, Chaos Computer Club member Matthias Marx managed to get Clearview to delete the hash value representing his biometric profile - although not the actual images or metadata - after filing a complaint with the Hamburg data protection authorities.The decision by the Hamburg DPA was that Clearview AI had added his biometric profile to its searchable database without his knowledge or consent. It did not order the deletion of the photographs, however.
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"It is long known that Clearview AI has not only me, but many, probably thousands of Europeans in its illegal face database. An order by the European data protection authorities to remove the faces of all Europeans is long overdue," Marx told The Reg via email. "It is not a solution that every person has to file [their] own complaint."
“Clearview seems to misunderstand the internet as a homogeneous and fully public forum where everything is up for grabs,” commented Lucie Audibert, legal officer at Privacy International, one of a group of four rights groups bringing the complaints. “This is plainly wrong. Such practices threaten the open character of the Internet and the numerous rights and freedoms it enables.”
[13]US Homeland Security sued for 'stonewalling' over use of Clearview facial recognition
[14]Don't scrape the faces of our citizens for recognition, Canada tells Clearview AI – delete those images
[15]How the tables have turned: Bloke says he trained facial recognition algorithm to identify police officers
[16]Sick of AI engines scraping your pics for facial recognition? Here's a way to Fawkes them right up
[17]IBM quits facial recognition because Black Lives Matter
The other campaign groups include the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, Homo Digitalis and noyb - the European Center for Digital Rights.
Regulators, including the UK's ICO and France's CNIL, now have three months to respond.
We have asked Clearview for comment. ®
Updated at 10:53 UTC to add:
Clearview AI told The Reg it "has never had any contracts with any EU customer and is not currently available to EU customers."
"We have voluntarily processed the five Data Access Requests in question, which only contain publicly available information, just like thousands of others we have processed.
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"Clearview AI has helped thousands of law enforcement agencies across America," it added. "National governments have expressed a dire need for our technology because they know it can help investigate crimes like money laundering and human trafficking, which know no borders."
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/20/ai_roundup_clearview/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/05/clearviewai_cease_desist/
[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clearview-ai-google-youtube-send-cease-and-desist-letter-to-facial-recognition-app/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YK-CHOWz5scebtqfDAg76gAAAEQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YK-CHOWz5scebtqfDAg76gAAAEQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YK-CHOWz5scebtqfDAg76gAAAEQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/14/clearview_us_lawsuit/
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/05/27/ico_clearview.pdf
[9] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02016R0679-20160504
[10] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted
[11] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/05/26/matthias_clearview.pdf
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YK-CHOWz5scebtqfDAg76gAAAEQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/14/clearview_us_lawsuit/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/08/in_brief_ai/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/26/in_brief_ai/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/22/defeat_facial_recognition/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/09/ibm_quits_facial_recognition_tech/
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YK-CHOWz5scebtqfDAg76gAAAEQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Who hasn't?
That's just the normal human way.
Indeed, it's a cornerstone of open and caring human societies. Just think of places where the assumption of trust and good intentions of fellow citizens don't apply and how much you wouldn't want to live there.
I would rather follow a path of assuming trust and dealing with the occasional consequences of that assumption, than sinking into a paranoid pool of hopelessness. The internet is on the whole a wondrous tool of human invention. It also brings along all of our human strengths and weaknesses. We just have to learn how to deal with both, whilst along the way endeavoring not to fall into patterns of behavior that could be characterized as blind faith or rampant anxiety.
Oh the irony...
" Google, Twitter, Facebook and even Venmo all sent cease and desist letters to Clearview "
AKA "stop infringing our prerogative on data slurping!"
Re: Oh the irony...
My mate made a good living robbing our neighbours, so why can't I.
Makes total sense.
Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
That "data protection" movement is filing lawsuits against a company which provides services to law enforcement agencies who want to find a suspect using an image which was taken during the time that suspect was present in a situation when a crime was committed.
Even worse, they ask that Europeans are removed from the database, in case an European gets caught in a security camera shot, information helping to identify those suspects shouldn't be available to law enforcement.
This is nothing more but the usual leftist crap rampant in European politics, let the criminals go free under the banner of "data protection".
Just the working middle class needs to be squeezed dry for taxes in order to pay the salaries and social benefits of all those leftist leeches.
@naive
Well done for choosing a user name that is totally appropriate to your thinking.
Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
Did you not read the detail? The problem is not "footage from security cameras" - it's images scraped from everywhere.
So you're happy with Chinese-style pervasive surveillance then? Just in case somebody somewhere commits a crime?
I will not agree to having my every move recorded, never mind kept forever. They can fuck off with keeping any footage of me. I refuse to accept pervasive surveillance. I believe in the "innocent until proven guilty" principle. You clearly have the opposite idea.
Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
Unfortunately I can only down vote you once.
My privacy should be my choice.
Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
You are Teresa May / Patel, and I claim my £5
Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
Actually, you could add Jack Straw and David Blunkett to the list
Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
And probably every other Home Secretary who had the opportunity, no matter what they said before they became Home Secretary. Coincidentally the 'Yes Minister' episode 'The Death List' was repeated this week...
Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
Law and Order - but Clearview believes it should get a free pass huh?
Doesn't that make Clearview the leach?
Re: Clearview provides search services to law enforcement agencies
Upvoted for pointing out the idiocy of removing ALL images from their database, but the problem is that most of those images will be of people who have not and do not intend to go out and commit crime. Clearview should not be allowed to profit off sharing MY image with law enforcement groups on the off-chance I might, one day, break the law.
It is not just "leftist crap", it is a valid concern for the law-abiding amongst us and on top of which it's a a damn liberty - why should they get all the money?
Only one bad actor?
Clearview AI told The Reg it "has never had any contracts with any EU customer and is not currently available to EU customers."
Translation: We, Clearview, don't give a fuck about your complaints. You have no contracts with us and you were stupid enough to put something visible on the internet. Now, go away and sob somewhere else.
Ok, but that just covers Clearview. Lets talk about Google and Facebook and Amazon and Microsoft and Apple and all those others, shall we? Every single one of them gives us the same stinky-finger when we want them to leave any of our data alone. All these companies have made a living (and a fortune) from taking other's data. They all should be held accountable and the bosses/leaders should be held personally accountable.
Re: Only one bad actor?
"has never had any contracts with any EU customer and is not currently available to EU customers."
i.e. Hasn't actually SOLD their crap to a European agency yet, but has given them a free trial, which they hope will lead to sales.
Copyright as well as data protection
Who owns the copyright on the images that they have downloaded, do they have permission to keep them ?
Granted that most of the big Internet corporations ignore copyright (unless you are breaching theirs) but that does not mean that the question should not be asked.
Re: Copyright as well as data protection
The person who took the photograph generally has and retains copyright of that image unless they have explicitly given it away. However, many web sites require you to agree to T&Cs that revoke your copyright before you upload any image to the site.
“the largest known database of 3+ billion facial images”
Way to go to boast about how much personal data you obtained without consent in a post-GDPR era.
On top of that, way to go to demonstrate how little you understand of the functioning of Google. Google does not have the image stored in its databases, it has the link to the image, and the metadata surrounding it.
Might not be better, but at least Google cannot show you the image if the host removes it. You can.
"Clearview AI has never had any contracts with any EU customer"
It's not the Customers that are the problem.
It's the Data Subjects' Rights.
Re: "Clearview AI has never had any contracts with any EU customer"
And copyright owners' rights.
Cleaview answer is BS
From [1]https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/application-regulation/who-does-data-protection-law-apply_en :
"The GDPR applies to:
a company or entity which processes personal data as part of the activities of one of its branches established in the EU, regardless of where the data is processed; or
a company established outside the EU and is offering goods/services (paid or for free) or is monitoring the behaviour of individuals in the EU. "
Learn to read before throwing your PR BS at us. Thx.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/application-regulation/who-does-data-protection-law-apply_en
Has anyone tried filing a DMCA takedown notice against them?
Seems like a clear-cut case of copyright violation. That might work more effectively than the GDPR.
Copyright Infringement
If the image has been registered with US Library of Congress, someone could sue them for significant change and court costs in Feraldom.
Who hasn't?
' “Clearview seems to misunderstand the internet as a homogeneous and fully public forum where everything is up for grabs” '
Hasn't almost every "digital service" done just the same? Goooooooooooooooooooogle, Farcebook, and all the rest.
Unfortunately, this misunderstanding actually reflects the original ethos immediately post-arpanet - a time when we (briefly) thought we could trust each other to play fair.