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>Clearview claims that they have stopped selling to Canadian clients but they don't know where the people in the images are from. Probably true if they're just

by mthoms 5y ago

>Clearview claims that they have stopped selling to Canadian clients but they don't know where the people in the images are from. Probably true if they're just scraping images, but their argument seems to be "innocence by ignorance". This part of their defence is outright laughable. What's the point of having this sort of database without the associated metadata?

tablespoon 5y ago
> This part of their defence is outright laughable. What's the point of having this sort of database without the associated metadata? I'm not a fan of Clearview AI, but I understand it's still useful even for faces that aren't explicitly tied to an identity in the system, because the if the police know where the matched photo is from, they can do the legwork to fill in the missing details. I think one of the examples in an early article about it had the police feeding a suspect's face into it. The system found a match in the background of some photo taken at a trade show (the guy was working a both). It only knew the website the photo was from, which allowed the police the identify the trade show, which allowed them to track down the people working at that booth to find their suspect.
- kurthr 5y ago
  The point being... _they then know where it's from_, that's the metadata. If they know the trade show, then they know where and when it was, whether it was in Canada and whether they need to delete it.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > The point being... _they then know where it's from_, that's the metadata. If they know the trade show, then they know where and when it was, whether it was in Canada and whether they need to delete it. In most cases they probably only know the URL, and it's far from trivial (or even possible in a general case) to mechanically derive if photo was taken in Canada from that. Personally I hope they're forced to overshoot and delete far more than necessary to ensure compliance (e.g. only keep photos they can positively determine were taken outside of Canada).
    - martin8412 5y ago
      If they don't know where something was recorded, then they should be forced to delete it. Let them go bankrupt if need be.
  - f311a 5y ago
    They don't, they just know the original URL. IIRC, they also scrape news websites and it's impossible to automatically and correctly detect the location of a person. Even if it's from a social network, you still can't be sure. Especially, if a photo have multiple persons.
    - kurthr 5y ago
      It is so impossible that it is the actual use case they are selling? " The system found a match in the background of some photo taken at a trade show (the guy was working a both). It only knew the website the photo was from, which allowed the police the identify the trade show, which allowed them to track down the people working at that booth to find their suspect."
      - meowface 5y ago
        Just as evidence I'm not defending them, I find their project totally unethical, and the owners and their associates are also highly involved with internet fascism and credential phishing (I know the source isn't the best, but I recommend reading the article): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-alt-right_n_5e7d028bc5b6cb08a92a5c48 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clearview-ai-facial-recogniti... With that said: the order is clearly impossible to execute. There's a huge difference between police clicking on a URL in a result and manually investigating to determine the location and having their system automatically determine the location of all photos and delete the ones that are in Canada.
        shkkmo 5y ago
        > With that said: the order is clearly impossible to execute. It is clearly possible to execute, it would just require much higher costs per image that ClearView processes and the probable need for ClearView to avoid using any images that they can't verify the location of in am economical fashion. Saying it is "impossible" is different from saying that the costs of compliance would fundamentally change ClearView's business model.
  - kazinator 5y ago
    You might have misunderstood tablespoon's remark: "if the police know where the matched photo is from" The "matched photo" is the right argument in the function match(photo_scraped_by_clearview, photo_of_interest) The matched photo is some piece of evidence the police already have from some investigation, e.g. surveillance camera or whatever. They know exactly where they got it. This is matched against the Clearview AI database. So then that match attaches information to the Clearview AI photo. They may be able to figure out where that was taken, since it is narrowed down.
- lopis 5y ago
  The last ones I want to "help" with this data is the police, known for misuse of tech since forever.
tremon 5y ago
Also, it opens up a very simple avenue for the watchdog: they might require Clearview to delete any data for which they can't prove that it's not Canadian.
martin8412 5y ago
Then they can delete their database and start over. Not knowing something doesn't excuse someone from responsibility.

by mthoms 5y ago

tablespoon 5y ago

> This part of their defence is outright laughable. What's the point of having this sort of database without the associated metadata? I'm not a fan of Clearview AI, but I understand it's still useful even for faces that aren't explicitly tied to an identity in the system, because the if the police know where the matched photo is from, they can do the legwork to fill in the missing details. I think one of the examples in an early article about it had the police feeding a suspect's face into it. The system found a match in the background of some photo taken at a trade show (the guy was working a both). It only knew the website the photo was from, which allowed the police the identify the trade show, which allowed them to track down the people working at that booth to find their suspect.

kurthr 5y ago
The point being... _they then know where it's from_, that's the metadata. If they know the trade show, then they know where and when it was, whether it was in Canada and whether they need to delete it.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > The point being... _they then know where it's from_, that's the metadata. If they know the trade show, then they know where and when it was, whether it was in Canada and whether they need to delete it. In most cases they probably only know the URL, and it's far from trivial (or even possible in a general case) to mechanically derive if photo was taken in Canada from that. Personally I hope they're forced to overshoot and delete far more than necessary to ensure compliance (e.g. only keep photos they can positively determine were taken outside of Canada).
  - martin8412 5y ago
    If they don't know where something was recorded, then they should be forced to delete it. Let them go bankrupt if need be.
- f311a 5y ago
  They don't, they just know the original URL. IIRC, they also scrape news websites and it's impossible to automatically and correctly detect the location of a person. Even if it's from a social network, you still can't be sure. Especially, if a photo have multiple persons.
  - kurthr 5y ago
    It is so impossible that it is the actual use case they are selling? " The system found a match in the background of some photo taken at a trade show (the guy was working a both). It only knew the website the photo was from, which allowed the police the identify the trade show, which allowed them to track down the people working at that booth to find their suspect."
    - meowface 5y ago
      Just as evidence I'm not defending them, I find their project totally unethical, and the owners and their associates are also highly involved with internet fascism and credential phishing (I know the source isn't the best, but I recommend reading the article): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-alt-right_n_5e7d028bc5b6cb08a92a5c48 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clearview-ai-facial-recogniti... With that said: the order is clearly impossible to execute. There's a huge difference between police clicking on a URL in a result and manually investigating to determine the location and having their system automatically determine the location of all photos and delete the ones that are in Canada.
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        > With that said: the order is clearly impossible to execute. It is clearly possible to execute, it would just require much higher costs per image that ClearView processes and the probable need for ClearView to avoid using any images that they can't verify the location of in am economical fashion. Saying it is "impossible" is different from saying that the costs of compliance would fundamentally change ClearView's business model.
- kazinator 5y ago
  You might have misunderstood tablespoon's remark: "if the police know where the matched photo is from" The "matched photo" is the right argument in the function match(photo_scraped_by_clearview, photo_of_interest) The matched photo is some piece of evidence the police already have from some investigation, e.g. surveillance camera or whatever. They know exactly where they got it. This is matched against the Clearview AI database. So then that match attaches information to the Clearview AI photo. They may be able to figure out where that was taken, since it is narrowed down.
lopis 5y ago
The last ones I want to "help" with this data is the police, known for misuse of tech since forever.

tremon 5y ago

Also, it opens up a very simple avenue for the watchdog: they might require Clearview to delete any data for which they can't prove that it's not Canadian.

martin8412 5y ago

Then they can delete their database and start over. Not knowing something doesn't excuse someone from responsibility.