Clearview AI, the facial recognition firm that claims it is scraped 3 billion photos from the web to energy its face-matching system, has proposed making use of its expertise to every part from policing to retail to relationship, in keeping with a 2020 patent utility that grew to become public on Thursday.
The patent submitting was made in August — three months after the corporate stated in a federal court docket that it might take voluntary actions to “avoid transacting with non-governmental customers anywhere.” The patent utility, nonetheless, describes methods to use its facial recognition software program to the non-public sector in addition to to legislation enforcement and social work, the place it says it could possibly be used to presumably establish individuals who use medication or folks experiencing homelessness.
“In many instances, it may be desirable for an individual to know more about a person that they meet, such as through business, dating, or other relationship,” the application reads, outlining a means of running a rapid background check based on an image of a person’s face. “A strong need exists for an improved method and system to obtain information about a person.”
The document also describes several other possible uses for Clearview AI, such as to “grant or deny access for a person, a facility, a venue, or a device,” or for a public agency to accurately dispense social benefits and reduce fraud. It also says users could deploy Clearview to identify “a sex offender” or “homeless people,” or to determine whether someone has a “mental issue or handicap,” which could influence the way police respond to a situation.
Clearview AI’s application largely describes technology that the company has had since 2019 and provided to more than 2,200 law enforcement agencies, companies, and individuals around the world. While companies typically file patents for technology they hope to invent in the future or to prevent competition, they can also be useful to describe larger questions and “problems the company is trying to solve,” according to Slate.
“We applied for a patent because we believe we have made significant innovations in the field of facial recognition, especially regarding accuracy and the use of our large-scale database of publicly available facial images,” Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That said to BuzzFeed News in response to a list of questions. “Clearview AI is currently only used by law enforcement for after-the-crime investigations.”
“We do not intend to launch a consumer-grade version of Clearview AI,” he added.
Ton-That also said the law firm of Fox Rothschild LLP helped prepare the patent. He did not clarify why the patent application described extensive consumer-grade and private sector uses for its technology.
Ton-That has said in media interviews that the company’s software is “strictly for law enforcement,” and that it is intended to help victims of child sex trafficking and other heinous crimes. However, this patent application shows that Clearview is aware that its technology could allow individuals, businesses, and other private entities to look into the background of anyone with whom they interact. In its filing, the company used language similar to that of its advertisements to police departments, conveying a “need” to protect people from criminals and pegging itself as the most effective way to do so.
“I think it’s interesting to compare the information on Clearview’s website as to what they intend to do with what’s in the application,” said David J. Stein, an attorney with Studebaker & Brackett PC who has experience with machine learning patents. “Even if they say this is strictly for law enforcement, the application isn’t limited to that, the uses of the technology aren’t limited to that.”
The patent application describes many possible uses for its technology that go beyond the realm of law enforcement. Clearview AI, the application reads, “presents a method for providing information about a subject (e.g., a person, an unknown person, a newly met person, a person with deficient memory, a criminal, an intoxicated person, a drug user, a homeless person).”
The application also says that a version of Clearview could pull up profile information associated with a face match. This information could include things like date and place of birth, nationality, educational history, phone numbers, email addresses, hobbies, and personal interests.
Notably, said Stein, there are no details about how people can protect themselves from being probed in this way.
“In a lot of these types of applications, you’ll see a lot about privacy, you’ll see a lot about consent — there’s nothing in there that I can see about that,” Stein told BuzzFeed News. “There’s only one very brief and tangential reference to [acknowledge] that maybe there can be privacy settings. And there’s just no detail about it whatsoever.”
The application states that Clearview could also link to a match’s other social media accounts, like their “professional profile” on a site such as LinkedIn, or an “employer website.” Facebook and LinkedIn have previously sent Clearview cease-and-desist letters for violating their respective rules around the scraping and use of images, but neither company is known to have taken any legal action against the New York City–based startup.
In its application, Clearview also describes creating a network for users if they’re in the same geographic area or work in a certain industry, such as “legislation enforcement, retail, [or] actual property.” One of the details of such a community, the corporate says, can be to “share headshots of high-risk individuals” by a shared database.
Ton-That declined to inform BuzzFeed News whether or not this characteristic at the moment exists, or if Clearview plans to launch it.
Even if Clearview had stated that its instrument is supposed for legislation enforcement, it wouldn’t matter to the US patent workplace. Stein stated the supposed discipline of use is “totally irrelevant to the patent system.”
So why describe these makes use of in any respect? Clearview’s sweeping descriptions of what its expertise is, and the way it may be used, are the makings of a “pretty ambitious” utility, in keeping with Stein.
The utility {couples} two generic ideas: an online crawler, which searches the web for photos with faces, and the facial recognition expertise itself. Stein stated the patent utility makes use of extraordinarily broad, generic language to explain how these instruments come collectively, and that’s most likely strategic.
“You’re staking out more territory by saying less,” Stein stated. In different phrases, Clearview could possibly be trying to defend in opposition to as many patent lawsuits as doable by describing itself in an especially common method.
In analyzing the patent utility for BuzzFeed News, Adam Harvey, a facial recognition researcher, stated it contains 30 claims that describe methods or code that may be discovered on public code repositories, together with GitHub.
“From the perspective of the CEO, you’re going to want IP in your portfolio to raise money or sell your company,” Harvey stated.
Ton-That, who’s listed as the only real inventor on the patent utility, has offered contradicting statements about Clearview’s enterprise relationships previously. While he maintained early final yr that the corporate was targeted on working with legislation enforcement, BuzzFeed News reported that Clearview’s facial recognition instrument had been utilized by non-public firms together with Macy’s, Kohl’s, and Bank of America. Clearview AI additionally had its personal inside designation for people who find themselves a “Friend” of the corporate, and offered its software program to potential buyers, politicians, and private acquaintances of firm executives.
Civil rights teams just like the American Civil Liberties Union and personal residents have lengthy expressed issues about Clearview’s strategy to non-public privateness. Last yr, the corporate was sued in a federal court docket in Illinois for allegedly violating a state statute relating to the usage of biometric knowledge for industrial functions by capturing the faces of residents with out their consent.
In response to that go well with, Clearview stated it was canceling the accounts of “every customer who was not either associated with law enforcement or some other federal, state, or local government department, office, or agency,” in addition to any accounts for entities based mostly in Illinois.
Last week, Canada’s federal privateness commissioner introduced the outcomes of a probe that discovered Clearview had engaged in “mass surveillance” of “millions of individuals” within the nation. Clearview had beforehand stated it had stopped working within the nation when the probe was launched final yr.
While Clearview has contended that it has a First Amendment proper to make use of different folks’s photos to coach its facial recognition algorithms, some police departments are cautious of utilizing the system due to privateness issues. In November, the Los Angeles Police Department banned the usage of Clearview and different industrial facial recognition firms after BuzzFeed News knowledgeable officers that investigators had been utilizing the software program with out the data of their commanding officers.
“Clearview grabs photos from all over the place, and that, from a department standpoint, raises public trust concerns,” LAPD Deputy Police Chief John McMahon informed BuzzFeed News on the time.
Logan McDonald contributed to this story.
