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"In this riveting feat of reporting, Kashmir Hill illuminates the improbable rise of Clearview AI and how Hoan Ton-That, a computer engineer and Richard Schwartz, a Giuliani associate, launched a terrifying facial recognition app with society-altering potential. They were assisted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles Johnson and billionaire Trump backer Peter Thiel. The app can scan a blurry portrait, and, in just seconds, collect every instance of a person's online life. It can find your name, your social media profiles, your friends and family, even your home address (as well as photos of you that you may not even have known existed). The story of Clearview AI opens up a window into a larger, more urgent one about our tortured relationship to technology, the way it entertains and seduces us even as it steals our privacy and lays us bare to bad actors in politics, criminal justice, and tech. This technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. Ubiquitous in China and Russia, it was also developed by American companies, including Google and Facebook, who decided it was too radical to release. That did not stop Clearview. They gave demos of the tech to interested private investors and contracted it out to hundreds of law enforcement agencies around the country. American law enforcement, including the Department of Homeland Security, has already used it to arrest people for everything from petty theft to assault. Without regulation it could expand the reach of policing-as it has in China and Russia-to a terrifying, dystopian level"--… (more)
User reviews
The book is scary. What is the potential for facial
We already know that Madison Square Garden uses facial recognition software to ban individuals (for instance, attorneys whose law firms have active lawsuits against MSG) from entering any events there. Security is pinged when such individuals pass through the turnstile, and they are politely told they are not welcome there and escorted out.
What could happen if this software started to be used to prevent you from shopping in a certain store, or perhaps banned from dining in a restaurant because their owner or their staff members do not like your political beliefs?
Although facial recognition was not used in the situation that comes to mind, there was an instance where some individuals that supported a certain president were told they were not welcome to dine in a restaurant. One could always say it’s up to the owner of a store or restaurant to decide who to serve…until you are on the receiving end of being banned because YOUR politics are not agreeable.
We already know that China uses facial recognition software to manage their populations’ activities. Do things the CCP likes and wants you to do, and you get points assigned to you, similar to a credit card rewards program. The more points you receive, the more privileges you are granted. Do things the CCP does not like, and your level of privileges never increases, or perhaps goes down. Are you ready for prime time for this to occur in the USA?
This is dangerous stuff.