LO: Social Impacts of Digital Art

Clearview AI is an app currently being used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the US, including the FBI. It can compare a photo of someone’s face to a database of more than 3 billion pictures that Clearview has access to from Facebook, Venmo, YouTube, and other sites. This database includes the FBI’s own database, which contains passport and driver’s license photos. It totals more than 640 million images of US citizens. Clearview AI then returns with matches, along with links to the sites where the database photos were from; it can easily return a name, and possibly a home address as well. What if the general public had access to this app? Police officers and Clearview investors think it’s a possibility for the future. Hopefully this never happens. Personally, I’d never feel safe again. And even in the hands of law enforcement, this technology is controversial. Privacy advocates warn that the app could still return false matches to the police and result in the incarceration of innocent people, and mass implementation and abuse of this technology could be a slippery slope to a surveillance state.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/clearview-app-lets-strangers-find-your-name-info-with-snap-of-a-photo-report-says/