Clearview AI to get patent for facial recognition technology
Clearview AI has received green signal from the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office and is set to receive a patent for its controversial facial recognition technology.
The secretive company, until exposed by the New York Times, claimed to have more than 10 billion image database, which it scrapped from the social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter. Clearview AI’s method of scrapping images is questioned on ethical ground and countries like Australia, and U.K. has asked the company to stop scrapping the images within their territory and destroy the already collected images.
The company defends the accusation by saying that it only collects the images available in public domain and its technology is used by law enforcement officials to identify the criminals. But, critics argue that the Clearview AI use will go beyond as stated by the company to target the vulnerable groups and silence the government critics. Inaccuracy of such system especially with people of color can also leads to wrong arrests, critics argued.
Amid increasing pressure from privacy advocacy groups, companies like Facebook and Amazon have stopped working on the facial recognition system. Amazon paused the sale of its facial recognition system, Rekognition, to U.S. law enforcement. Facebook recently announced that it will stop using facial recognition system to identify the people in the photo to suggest tagging.