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The government shouldn't ban all facial recognition platforms, he maintained. "It's unfortunate that the Clearview article has created such a firestorm," he said.Īny regulation of facial recognition by law enforcement needs to be "really thoughtful," Gacek continued. Jon Gacek, head of government, legal, and compliance at Veritone, an AI vendor that sells a competing facial recognition platform, said too much regulation would be a mistake.
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"Of course, the problem here is much wider as this kind of technology affects everyone and can be used by anyone for whatever purpose they wish." A Clearview AI competitor's perspective The Clearview AI controversy "falls into the same chasm that many criminal justice issues do - only wrongdoers should worry about it, 'so why should I worry?'" he said. "At a federal level I don't see much happening." "As of now, a policy is little more than deciding whether or not to use such technology at a local level," Pelz-Sharpe said. Clearview AI scraped images and data from social media websites.Īs of now, a policy is little more than deciding whether or not to use such technology at a local level.īut far-reaching regulation of how police agencies use facial recognition may not happen anytime soon. Also, social media and tech giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Venmo have sent cease and desist letters to Clearview demanding the company stop scraping their platforms. Since the New York Times' story, however, the state of New Jersey barred its police officers from using Clearview AI. "Many people already accept that they have give up a right to privacy and ownership of their data," he said. Still, said Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder of market advisory and research firm Deep Analysis, while Clearview AI's practices should be a warning signal to the public, he doubts people will react strongly to it. Since then, critics have blasted the company for allegedly violating the privacy of countless people, even as law enforcement officials have said the facial recognition platform is a powerful weapon against crime because it can identify suspects faster than ever before. The New York Times last month broke the story on Clearview AI, which had previously operated in relative secrecy. The platform, already being used by hundreds of local and federal law enforcement agencies in the U.S., can supposedly draw on its extensive database to identify people from just a single image. The privately held company, founded in 2017 and based in New York, is doing what many other technology companies have declined to do for years - scrape social media platforms to create a database with more than three billion images of ordinary people, then use the database to power a powerful facial recognition tool.
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The last time Clearview said it raised venture capital was in July 2021, closing $30 million in Series B funding.But even amid controversy over the small vendor's methods and technology - which have even been rejected by social media giants as intrusive and dangerous - it's not likely that the affair centering on Clearview AI will spur significant regulation of facial recognition technology. Ton-That told Reuters in a February interview that he was happy with the leadership team he had assembled last year. Ashra did not respond to requests for comment.
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Reached by phone, Metaxas confirmed his departure but declined further comment. Clearview had announced their hires in May 2021, and it recently removed both from the company's "leadership" webpage. Devesh Ashra, chief strategy officer, took a role last month at Credit Suisse, according to his LinkedIn profile. federal government.Ĭlearview also split with Chief Revenue Officer Chris Metaxas, two sources said. The company, which had nearly 50 employees as of February, recently has targeted app developers and lucrative opportunities with the U.S. The cuts included staff who worked with local law enforcement, LinkedIn profiles showed.
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He declined to comment on the teams or number of people affected. "The strategy is designed to improve efficiency and reduce operational costs," he said.
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