Hoan Ton - That , the CEO and founder of a fount realisation companywhose backer freely admitcould facilitate direct to a “ dystopian future or something , ” say he has a First Amendment right to scrape whatever images he damn well pleases off public websites like Twitter to pad out his troupe ’s supposedly three billion photo database .
Clearview AI has licensed its cheek surveillance system to over 600 law enforcement agencies order from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to local police department . It operates with virtually next to no oversight , claims it ’s nontaxable from biometric data law , and marketed its tools to law enforcement as a sort offace recognition free for allwhile reportedlymaking false claimsabout its usefulness in cracking case . Clearview ’s database is built off image scraped from public sources on the net like Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Venmo , Google , and countless other web site . Late last month , the New Jersey attorney general ’s spot ordered police tostop using the app , while Twitter sent the company acease - and - desistdemanding it cease scraping data point and delete anything it had already compile .
In aninterview with CBS This Morningscheduled to air on Wednesday , Ton - That aver that “ We ’ve received a letter , and our effectual counsel has reached out to them and are handling it consequently . But there is also a First Amendment right field to public information . So the way we have built our scheme is to only take publicly useable info and index it that way . ”
Screenshot: CBS Good Morning (Twitter)
EXCLUSIVE : The founder of a facial recognition company described as both “ groundbreaking ” and “ a incubus ” is speaking out .
Wednesday on@CBSThisMorning , Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton - That talks to@errolbarnettabout the controversial software in his first TV interview.pic.twitter.com/jBrJ2ZzP1u
— CBS Mornings ( @CBSMornings)February 4 , 2020
“ So that ’s all I can say on the matter , ” Ton - That added .
Hon - That may be right that scratch the datum is n’t presently illegal under Union law , but whether or not his troupe is divulge itself to civil liability is less cleared . The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appealsruled in a casebetween LinkedIn and data analytics firm hiQ Labs last year that scraping public datum is n’t a violation of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ( CFAA ) , theinfamously vaguely writtenfederal constabulary that criminalizes hacking . Staff attorney Jamie Lee Williams of the Electronic Frontier Foundation , a nonprofit digital rights grouping known for its work on privacy cases , write in a recent blog postthat it would be a mistake to assay to ban automated public data scrape via the CFAA , as it would criminalize the many mundane use of the proficiency and the bit could be mistreat by corporations reckon to stamp out competition . ( Notably , while hiQ raised argument that the character should be thrown out on First Amendment grounds , the courtdeclined to find on themin its decision . )
Facebook had previouslytold the New York Timesthat it was investigate and “ will take appropriate legal action if we find they are transgress our rules , ” though it did n’t tell the paper whether it had also sent a cease and desist . Stanford Internet Observatory film director and former Facebook chief information security officer Alex Stamos told the Times that the 9th Circuit ruling had “ eviscerated the sound argumentation that Facebook used to use on scammers and spammer . ” Twitter impeach Clearview of violating its policies in its cease and desist letter , but it ’s not clear if its terminus of service would be sufficient to stop the company in court .
Stamos did tweet , however , that he think there was a case that Clearview hadviolated the copyrightsof the millions of masses the photos originally belonged to by repurposing them without authorization , for earnings , and in ravishment of Facebook ’s terms of service . That could leave in a stratum activity . Facebook recently settled in a similar case in Illinois , which passed a law in 2008 requiring opt - in consent for biostatistics collection , tothe tune of $ 550 million .
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1218633712901865472
AsWired observe , there ’s no federal practice of law and only a fistful of state laws protecting substance abuser data , like the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Illinois law , so in the interim ship’s company like Facebook have mainly release to draw it hard to scrape their situation with technical roadblock . Those include step like require sign - in and/or trammel what search engines can index on the situation . That ’s not enough , according to Williams .
If the CFAA “ is the just we can do to protect our privacy with these very complicated , very modernistic problem , then I think we ’re screwed , ” Williams tell Wired . “ … We need a comprehensive privacy statute that covers biometric data . ”
Correction : A previous version of this article inaccurately attributed a quote to Ton - That . The person who made the “ dystopian time to come ” remark was Kirenaga Partners founder David Scalzo .
Clearview AICybersecurityFace RecognitionFacial RecognitionPolicePrivacyTechnology
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