News that Clearview AI is expanding its usage to countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is of concern. These countries are known to have documented numerous human rights violations and discriminate against LGBTQ. There is a potential for this facial recognition app to enable authoritarian regimes that have documented human rights abuses to “suppress their citizens.”
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts noted that Clearview AI “scrapes billions of photos from social media sites rather than using relatively limited sets of photos from existing government databases.” The CEO for Clearview AI, Hoan Ton-That, was supposed to meet with Senator Ron Wyden to discuss the use of its technology and its rapid expansion, but has rescheduled their meeting for a third time.
There are still some doubts on Clearview AI’s claim on accuracy of its technology and the entities with which it works. The company’s lawyer Tor Ekeland said “all the harm is speculative,” adding that Clearview is committed to working to “ensure that the use of biometrics in law enforcement strikes the proper balance between protecting our communities and our constitutional rights.”
