Secret Police Use of Clearview AI Highlights Urgent Need for Facial Recognition Ban
Police departments across the country secretly use Clearview AI, a facial recognition tool that scrapes billions of public images to identify individuals. This hidden surveillance underscores the immediate necessity for strict laws banning law enforcement from using face recognition technology.
Clearview AI markets a powerful facial recognition tool to law enforcement agencies, allowing officers to upload a photo of an unidentified person and receive identifying information linked to publicly posted images. The company scrapes billions of face images from various websites, including social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube, to build its massive database. Despite claiming that over 1,000 agencies use its services, Clearview operates largely in secret, keeping the general public and even some high-ranking officials in the dark.
Recent investigations reveal that police departments across the country use this technology without public knowledge or oversight. The New Jersey Attorney General, for example, only discovers that his own officers use Clearview AI after reading a breaking news article. This lack of transparency allows law enforcement to exploit these invasive tools while evading public scrutiny and accountability.
The abuse of facial recognition technology by police is a present reality that directly impacts communities, as seen in past uses at political protests and on public streets. Without a strict moratorium or complete ban at the federal, state, and local levels, agencies continue to adopt and hide these surveillance capabilities. A legislative pause is essential to stop the unchecked expansion of this flawed and invasive technology.