11 ms·

Police relied on Clearview AI and put the wrong person in jail

480 points by danso 4y ago

danso 4y ago
non paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/facial-recognition-false-arrests.html?unlocked_article_code=p8k1SD4fcE1PetJV5HloG61hxtLUx231n-ez3VZNrfAQvYIWDd59XocjreM1LKwdt9nAIR3aIJnh0rBO6OrlVyTFpDZSs03kOLAQhM2q2ek_dQ0mCoACMOrxI375t6_oyI2uMMqof8PhoPREFyWF4CIcOrNnOcAeKShzPJbQPamhytesy4HcjCbVfim1Mm8PMZth51Dz1P3m_eVzwyla1JKeMeAXBReBLl62qIGUInFLBYEJKn_BjNqGF_pr_qi7H6nOsAFEqpv8yiJOWa9j9HGKP4UAOZDLR3c4TpwazqaQucaXqj-KKrpfh7UlfIFGy4RCRe6GnwlPBFrX3vn0YTXZ0Ud0pz_5eMDJXA&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/facial-recogni... Excerpt: > His parents made phone calls, hired lawyers and spent thousands of dollars to figure out why the police thought he was responsible for the crime, eventually discovering it was because Mr. Reid bore a resemblance to a suspect who had been recorded by a surveillance camera. The case eventually fell apart and the warrants were recalled, but only after Mr. Reid spent six days in jail and missed a week of work. > Mr. Reid’s wrongful arrest appears to be the result of a cascade of technologies — beginning with a bad facial recognition match — that are intended to make policing more effective and efficient but can also make it far too easy to apprehend the wrong person for a crime. None of the technologies are mentioned in official documents, and Mr. Reid was not told exactly why he had been arrested, a typical but troubling practice, according to legal experts and public defenders.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  Yikes. And there is very little people can do to prevent this until someone makes this their election platform to change the system, right? I'm assuming this is all constitutional.
- sitkack 4y ago
  How can non-official documents exist inside a government organization? What divides the two?
  - joe_the_user 4y ago
    Bureaucracies operate by standard procedures. Official documents are produced by standard procedures and official documents are often available to the public on a standard search - in the case of police, official documents would also be available to judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Unofficial documents are produced by official not using standard procedures in any variety of ways (searching a private company's database in this instance). Generally, doing this is against the regulations of a bureaucracy. But American police view themselves and often treated as above regulations, even their own regulations. So American police often produce and keep unofficial documents with no consequences.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > Mr. Reid’s wrongful arrest appears to be the result of a cascade of technologies This statement is clearly false. As evidenced by > and Mr. Reid was not told exactly why he had been arrested Malfeasance is the cause, the level of which should result in prison sentences for the police who made the decision to deprive a person of their freedom and more for a week.
  - than3 4y ago
    I'm sure they would simply say it was from improper training since most police recruits are never taught the law, and are often only dealing with hardened criminals for the first 5 years on-the-job.
    - joe_the_user 4y ago
      The idea that any police group (experienced, inexperienced, etc) "are often only dealing with hardened criminals for the first 5 years on-the-job" seems absurd on it's face. Police drive around an area and deal with the people and situations that arise in the area, which is to say they will inherent encounter average people most often. Violent crimes are less common than other crimes virtually anywhere. Edit: wow, OK, things beyond even me.
      - than3 4y ago
        In many areas, before you can be assigned to roles that interact with the public you generally have to have a number of years handling transfers, which often include hardened criminals for medical, court, jail/prison. It might be absurd, but it is common practice.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    Are police in the US obligated to tell you why you are being arrested?
    - than3 4y ago
      I'm not sure about that, but they certainly aren't required to provide information needed to validate a warrant is legitimate. California recently had a gang round-up where warrants that were provided as the basis for searches for properties in question had almost all information needed to verify the validity of the warrant redacted (even the address for the property in question being presented at, at least according to local news). No one had any idea what was going on or whether the warrants were even legitimate, seemed like a play out of East Germany's playbook before the wall came down, just short of the gestapo.
treis 4y ago
This isn't a technology story. This is a police made up evidence story. They claimed a source told them that this guy did it. Which seems impossible according to the facts the NYTimes laid out.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  A police made up evidence story wouldn't get as many clicks. A lot of people get arrested for the crime of "driving while black".
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    I thought it was because the officer "smelled weed". You can't just pull someone over for being a minority you know right?
    - bsder 4y ago
      You might want to ask some minorities about that ...
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      Any cop will tell you that they can come up with a "valid" pretext to make a traffic stop, after following a vehicle for a short time. The officer knows that their subjective claims will be treated as factual by the courts. So, yeah, a bigoted cop can pull over minorities and trivially manufacture some rational reason that will justify their actions. There's always a "reason".
  - danso 4y ago
    The subject of this story wasn't arrested for "driving while black". His arrest warrants, based on AI-face recognition as a source, was signed on July 18. His car was pulled over in November after an officer learned of the warrants when running his plates. "People get arrested on false pretenses since the invention of police" feels like an overly reductionist response to stories scrutinizing technology
radicaldreamer 4y ago
Everyone should opt-out of Clearview AI here: https://www.clearview.ai/privacy-and-requests https://www.clearview.ai/privacy-and-requests Much easier for EU and California residents
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > This tool will not remove URLs from Clearview which are currently active and public. If there is a public image or web page that you want excluded, then take it down yourself (or ask the webmaster or publisher to take it down). After it is down, submit the link here. That's not an opt-out. That's only a request that they remove the index to an image that has already been removed from the web. You can't ask them to remove all photos of you, nor will they remove a photo that is still up on the web. In other words, it's the sort of bullshit that we can expect from an evil company like ClearView.
  - realce 4y ago
    What incredible arrogance, it makes my blood boil. You're supposed to either know what all their sources are and do all of your own work one at a time, or just give them links to the things you most want hidden, an extreme vulnerability.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Not only that, but ClearView also incorporated driver's license photos into their database -- and there's literally no way that you can have those removed. So even the meagre facility they offer here is completely meaningless.
  - radicaldreamer 4y ago
    You need privacy laws like GDPR and California's in your state.
    - stevenjgarner 4y ago
      Yes my cousin's pet ferret's website desperately needs the burden of a GDPR-compliant Cookie Consent Notice. It has made European online web presence so burdensome.
hungryforcodes 4y ago
For a moment I read it as police raided Clearview AI. Sadly this is not the case.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
This is the real risk of AI in the short and medium term. Everyone who fronts like a malicious superintelligent being is the big problem should take a couple steps back and refocus on the harms being caused by it now. And particularly should understand the damage as being a complex combination of human social factors exacerbated by AI, rather than a fundamentally new thing we've never seen before.
- msla 4y ago
  We certainly don't want biases, like the idea that all short men have a complex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35330244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35330244
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Having a wholesome & productive evening are we?
danesparza 4y ago
Oh, this is simple. Clearview AI needs to get sued for defamation or slander. In the United States, falsely accusing someone can be considered defamation or slander, depending on the circumstances. Defamation is a legal term that refers to the act of making false statements about someone that damage their reputation. If the false statements are made in writing, such as in a blog post or social media post, it is called libel. If the false statements are made verbally, it is called slander. To prove defamation or slander, the person who was falsely accused must demonstrate that the statements were false (he can), that they were published or spoken to a third party (they were -- to the police department), that they caused harm to the person's reputation (he lost a week from work and was put in jail -- not to mention countless articles that mention this fact), and that the person making the false statements acted with actual malice or negligence (they provided a service for money and didn't check their facts). Actual malice means that the person making the false statements knew they were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. I'm pretty sure 'reckless disregard for the truth' would be pretty easy to prove in this case -- considering Clearview probably can't say specifically why this person selected for arrest. If a person is found guilty of defamation or slander, they may be required to pay damages to the person who was falsely accused to compensate for the harm caused to their reputation. The amount of damages can vary depending on the extent of the harm and the specific circumstances of the case.
- hypersoar 4y ago
  My guess is that some other law or tort would be a better fit, but I'll note that the "actual malice" and "negligence" are different standards with the latter being a lower bar. The former only applies to public figures.
- bigmattystyles 4y ago
  I always wondered the same about credit reporting bureaus.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    A fine example of regulatory capture. The "Fair" Credit Reporting Act 15 USC 1681h (e): > Except as provided in sections 1681n and 1681o of this title, no consumer may bring any action or proceeding in the nature of defamation, invasion of privacy, or negligence with respect to the reporting of information against any consumer reporting agency, any user of information, or any person who furnishes information to a consumer reporting agency, based on information disclosed pursuant to section 1681g, 1681h, or 1681m of this title, or based on information disclosed by a user of a consumer report to or for a consumer against whom the user has taken adverse action, based in whole or in part on the report except as to false information furnished with malice or willful intent to injure such consumer. This country desperately needs a GDPR equivalent. One that does not except financial surveillance bureaus, the healthcare industry, or any other quasi-governmental organization that abuses our personal information.
SN76477 4y ago
We need to be skeptical of technology again.
Aransentin 4y ago
Bayes' theorem is ruthless. Even if your AI is 99.99% accurate, if you have one true positive and scan everybody the vast majority of the people you flag will be perfectly innocent. The people deploying the system and police are ignorant of the statistics and base rates, thinks that it's only 0.001% likely you are innocent, and chuck you in jail because of it.
- sseagull 4y ago
  Ahh the the Base Rate Fallacy - always something to keep in mind. A lot of people fall for that one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
- TomK32 4y ago
  I do wonder if the AI did stop after a 99,9% match or tried the whole database and there were actually a dozen 99,9n% and 99,8% matches. That meta information should be also shown to the officers requesting a search.
diebeforei485 4y ago
This is nuts. Automated image matching results should not treated the same priority as detective work. It should not result in warrants automatically being sent out.
- swalling 4y ago
  The standards of evidence in the justice system are universally pretty weak. From suspect lineups easily manipulated by police to phrenology-level bullshit like bite mark analysis, this is why fair estimates are that up to 10% of convicted criminals are innocent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project
ripe 4y ago
Apart from the facial recognition technology, there's also a second technology that was used and possibly misused. From the article: The friction of getting a warrant has been eased by technology. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office uses an “eWarrant” service, CloudGavel, for which it paid $39,800 last year. It’s an app that allows officers to request digital signatures from judges. “Law enforcement officers can now get an arrest warrant approved in minutes,” the company’s website states. Many civil liberties advocates actually favor electronic warrants; they allow judges to more easily review decisions made by the police and eliminate a complaint from officers that it’s too hard to get a warrant. But advocates said it would be worrisome if judges were simply clicking a button without asking questions or providing sufficient scrutiny. “There are real questions about whether it increases the incidence of judges rubber-stamping warrants,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director with the A.C.L.U.’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
- alixj 4y ago
  Excellent point. The judge should've known better than to approve this warrant on the basis that they photographed the whole country and found a resemblance 500 miles away.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - TomK32 4y ago
    But according to the article the judge wasn't told this.
jimnotgym 4y ago
Maybe we should just say that all 'miracle' technology is ok as corroborating evidence, but not as prima facie evidence. DNA, fingerprints, ai facial recognition...
poink 4y ago
There was a time when I questioned if it was worth all the social consequences to simply not be associated with my real name online. lol. lmao.
bagels 4y ago
https://archive.is/ekCx0 https://archive.is/ekCx0
petermcneeley 4y ago
I see; the problem with these giant draconian surveillance systems is that they are not always accurate. Dont worry I am sure they can solve that problem.
can16358p 4y ago
There should be HUGE penalty and FULL compensation for falsely accusing and arresting and innocent person.
- jgaa 4y ago
  If an innocent person is arrested because the police did not thoroughly examine the evidence, then the police officers and the prosecutor should be reviewed and criminally charged if they broke the law. No exceptions.
js2 4y ago
Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam) - Mistake? Haha. We don't make mistakes. https://youtu.be/wzFmPFLIH5s https://youtu.be/wzFmPFLIH5s
99_00 4y ago
The cops didn't even look at the suspect and compare him to the surveillance image. The judge approved the arrest warrant on the basis of AI alone. And people want to blame Clearview? Why? Do you actually care about wrongful arrests? Because when you take Clearview out of the picture, you still have these incompetent or overworked human beings cutting corners, arresting people, and having those people take a plea deals because they don't have money for lawyers so they can make their numbers and get whatever incentive they are chasing.
JamesAdir 4y ago
The framing of the headline is wrong - Police failed to do their job properly. This isn't related to Clearview or the laptop they write their reports on. Putting the technology aspect in the headline is just to lure in more clicks. Would expected more from a publication like the NYT.
croes 4y ago
This is another proof that "if you have nothing to hide, you jave nothing to fear" is wrong".
fwlr 4y ago
A classic case of “facial recognition technology inherits the morality of its users”. I expect if you investigate the police department that issued the arrest warrant you’d find an awful litany of arrests based on flimsy evidence. Face rec tech allows that shoddy policing to scale dramatically, transcend state borders, etc. Other commenters have mentioned the “five minute online judge” eWarrant tech and it certainly deserves credit for a supporting role.
low_tech_love 4y ago
”Clearview scraped billions of photos from the public web, including social media sites, to create a face-based search engine now used by law enforcement agencies.” What the *%#€!?

480 points by danso 4y ago

non paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/facial-recognition-false-arrests.html?unlocked_article_code=p8k1SD4fcE1PetJV5HloG61hxtLUx231n-ez3VZNrfAQvYIWDd59XocjreM1LKwdt9nAIR3aIJnh0rBO6OrlVyTFpDZSs03kOLAQhM2q2ek_dQ0mCoACMOrxI375t6_oyI2uMMqof8PhoPREFyWF4CIcOrNnOcAeKShzPJbQPamhytesy4HcjCbVfim1Mm8PMZth51Dz1P3m_eVzwyla1JKeMeAXBReBLl62qIGUInFLBYEJKn_BjNqGF_pr_qi7H6nOsAFEqpv8yiJOWa9j9HGKP4UAOZDLR3c4TpwazqaQucaXqj-KKrpfh7UlfIFGy4RCRe6GnwlPBFrX3vn0YTXZ0Ud0pz_5eMDJXA&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/facial-recogni... Excerpt: > His parents made phone calls, hired lawyers and spent thousands of dollars to figure out why the police thought he was responsible for the crime, eventually discovering it was because Mr. Reid bore a resemblance to a suspect who had been recorded by a surveillance camera. The case eventually fell apart and the warrants were recalled, but only after Mr. Reid spent six days in jail and missed a week of work. > Mr. Reid’s wrongful arrest appears to be the result of a cascade of technologies — beginning with a bad facial recognition match — that are intended to make policing more effective and efficient but can also make it far too easy to apprehend the wrong person for a crime. None of the technologies are mentioned in official documents, and Mr. Reid was not told exactly why he had been arrested, a typical but troubling practice, according to legal experts and public defenders.

barbazoo 4y ago
Yikes. And there is very little people can do to prevent this until someone makes this their election platform to change the system, right? I'm assuming this is all constitutional.
sitkack 4y ago
How can non-official documents exist inside a government organization? What divides the two?
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  Bureaucracies operate by standard procedures. Official documents are produced by standard procedures and official documents are often available to the public on a standard search - in the case of police, official documents would also be available to judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Unofficial documents are produced by official not using standard procedures in any variety of ways (searching a private company's database in this instance). Generally, doing this is against the regulations of a bureaucracy. But American police view themselves and often treated as above regulations, even their own regulations. So American police often produce and keep unofficial documents with no consequences.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> Mr. Reid’s wrongful arrest appears to be the result of a cascade of technologies This statement is clearly false. As evidenced by > and Mr. Reid was not told exactly why he had been arrested Malfeasance is the cause, the level of which should result in prison sentences for the police who made the decision to deprive a person of their freedom and more for a week.
- than3 4y ago
  I'm sure they would simply say it was from improper training since most police recruits are never taught the law, and are often only dealing with hardened criminals for the first 5 years on-the-job.
  - joe_the_user 4y ago
    The idea that any police group (experienced, inexperienced, etc) "are often only dealing with hardened criminals for the first 5 years on-the-job" seems absurd on it's face. Police drive around an area and deal with the people and situations that arise in the area, which is to say they will inherent encounter average people most often. Violent crimes are less common than other crimes virtually anywhere. Edit: wow, OK, things beyond even me.
    - than3 4y ago
      In many areas, before you can be assigned to roles that interact with the public you generally have to have a number of years handling transfers, which often include hardened criminals for medical, court, jail/prison. It might be absurd, but it is common practice.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Are police in the US obligated to tell you why you are being arrested?
  - than3 4y ago
    I'm not sure about that, but they certainly aren't required to provide information needed to validate a warrant is legitimate. California recently had a gang round-up where warrants that were provided as the basis for searches for properties in question had almost all information needed to verify the validity of the warrant redacted (even the address for the property in question being presented at, at least according to local news). No one had any idea what was going on or whether the warrants were even legitimate, seemed like a play out of East Germany's playbook before the wall came down, just short of the gestapo.

treis 4y ago

This isn't a technology story. This is a police made up evidence story. They claimed a source told them that this guy did it. Which seems impossible according to the facts the NYTimes laid out.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
A police made up evidence story wouldn't get as many clicks. A lot of people get arrested for the crime of "driving while black".
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  I thought it was because the officer "smelled weed". You can't just pull someone over for being a minority you know right?
  - bsder 4y ago
    You might want to ask some minorities about that ...
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    Any cop will tell you that they can come up with a "valid" pretext to make a traffic stop, after following a vehicle for a short time. The officer knows that their subjective claims will be treated as factual by the courts. So, yeah, a bigoted cop can pull over minorities and trivially manufacture some rational reason that will justify their actions. There's always a "reason".
- danso 4y ago
  The subject of this story wasn't arrested for "driving while black". His arrest warrants, based on AI-face recognition as a source, was signed on July 18. His car was pulled over in November after an officer learned of the warrants when running his plates. "People get arrested on false pretenses since the invention of police" feels like an overly reductionist response to stories scrutinizing technology

radicaldreamer 4y ago

Everyone should opt-out of Clearview AI here: https://www.clearview.ai/privacy-and-requests https://www.clearview.ai/privacy-and-requests Much easier for EU and California residents

JohnFen 4y ago
> This tool will not remove URLs from Clearview which are currently active and public. If there is a public image or web page that you want excluded, then take it down yourself (or ask the webmaster or publisher to take it down). After it is down, submit the link here. That's not an opt-out. That's only a request that they remove the index to an image that has already been removed from the web. You can't ask them to remove all photos of you, nor will they remove a photo that is still up on the web. In other words, it's the sort of bullshit that we can expect from an evil company like ClearView.
- realce 4y ago
  What incredible arrogance, it makes my blood boil. You're supposed to either know what all their sources are and do all of your own work one at a time, or just give them links to the things you most want hidden, an extreme vulnerability.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Not only that, but ClearView also incorporated driver's license photos into their database -- and there's literally no way that you can have those removed. So even the meagre facility they offer here is completely meaningless.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  You need privacy laws like GDPR and California's in your state.
  - stevenjgarner 4y ago
    Yes my cousin's pet ferret's website desperately needs the burden of a GDPR-compliant Cookie Consent Notice. It has made European online web presence so burdensome.

hungryforcodes 4y ago

For a moment I read it as police raided Clearview AI. Sadly this is not the case.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

This is the real risk of AI in the short and medium term. Everyone who fronts like a malicious superintelligent being is the big problem should take a couple steps back and refocus on the harms being caused by it now. And particularly should understand the damage as being a complex combination of human social factors exacerbated by AI, rather than a fundamentally new thing we've never seen before.

msla 4y ago
We certainly don't want biases, like the idea that all short men have a complex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35330244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35330244
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Having a wholesome & productive evening are we?

danesparza 4y ago

Oh, this is simple. Clearview AI needs to get sued for defamation or slander. In the United States, falsely accusing someone can be considered defamation or slander, depending on the circumstances. Defamation is a legal term that refers to the act of making false statements about someone that damage their reputation. If the false statements are made in writing, such as in a blog post or social media post, it is called libel. If the false statements are made verbally, it is called slander. To prove defamation or slander, the person who was falsely accused must demonstrate that the statements were false (he can), that they were published or spoken to a third party (they were -- to the police department), that they caused harm to the person's reputation (he lost a week from work and was put in jail -- not to mention countless articles that mention this fact), and that the person making the false statements acted with actual malice or negligence (they provided a service for money and didn't check their facts). Actual malice means that the person making the false statements knew they were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. I'm pretty sure 'reckless disregard for the truth' would be pretty easy to prove in this case -- considering Clearview probably can't say specifically why this person selected for arrest. If a person is found guilty of defamation or slander, they may be required to pay damages to the person who was falsely accused to compensate for the harm caused to their reputation. The amount of damages can vary depending on the extent of the harm and the specific circumstances of the case.

hypersoar 4y ago
My guess is that some other law or tort would be a better fit, but I'll note that the "actual malice" and "negligence" are different standards with the latter being a lower bar. The former only applies to public figures.
bigmattystyles 4y ago
I always wondered the same about credit reporting bureaus.
- mindslight 4y ago
  A fine example of regulatory capture. The "Fair" Credit Reporting Act 15 USC 1681h (e): > Except as provided in sections 1681n and 1681o of this title, no consumer may bring any action or proceeding in the nature of defamation, invasion of privacy, or negligence with respect to the reporting of information against any consumer reporting agency, any user of information, or any person who furnishes information to a consumer reporting agency, based on information disclosed pursuant to section 1681g, 1681h, or 1681m of this title, or based on information disclosed by a user of a consumer report to or for a consumer against whom the user has taken adverse action, based in whole or in part on the report except as to false information furnished with malice or willful intent to injure such consumer. This country desperately needs a GDPR equivalent. One that does not except financial surveillance bureaus, the healthcare industry, or any other quasi-governmental organization that abuses our personal information.

SN76477 4y ago

We need to be skeptical of technology again.

Aransentin 4y ago

Bayes' theorem is ruthless. Even if your AI is 99.99% accurate, if you have one true positive and scan everybody the vast majority of the people you flag will be perfectly innocent. The people deploying the system and police are ignorant of the statistics and base rates, thinks that it's only 0.001% likely you are innocent, and chuck you in jail because of it.

sseagull 4y ago
Ahh the the Base Rate Fallacy - always something to keep in mind. A lot of people fall for that one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
TomK32 4y ago
I do wonder if the AI did stop after a 99,9% match or tried the whole database and there were actually a dozen 99,9n% and 99,8% matches. That meta information should be also shown to the officers requesting a search.

diebeforei485 4y ago

This is nuts. Automated image matching results should not treated the same priority as detective work. It should not result in warrants automatically being sent out.

swalling 4y ago
The standards of evidence in the justice system are universally pretty weak. From suspect lineups easily manipulated by police to phrenology-level bullshit like bite mark analysis, this is why fair estimates are that up to 10% of convicted criminals are innocent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project

ripe 4y ago

Apart from the facial recognition technology, there's also a second technology that was used and possibly misused. From the article: The friction of getting a warrant has been eased by technology. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office uses an “eWarrant” service, CloudGavel, for which it paid $39,800 last year. It’s an app that allows officers to request digital signatures from judges. “Law enforcement officers can now get an arrest warrant approved in minutes,” the company’s website states. Many civil liberties advocates actually favor electronic warrants; they allow judges to more easily review decisions made by the police and eliminate a complaint from officers that it’s too hard to get a warrant. But advocates said it would be worrisome if judges were simply clicking a button without asking questions or providing sufficient scrutiny. “There are real questions about whether it increases the incidence of judges rubber-stamping warrants,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director with the A.C.L.U.’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

alixj 4y ago
Excellent point. The judge should've known better than to approve this warrant on the basis that they photographed the whole country and found a resemblance 500 miles away.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- TomK32 4y ago
  But according to the article the judge wasn't told this.

jimnotgym 4y ago

Maybe we should just say that all 'miracle' technology is ok as corroborating evidence, but not as prima facie evidence. DNA, fingerprints, ai facial recognition...

poink 4y ago

There was a time when I questioned if it was worth all the social consequences to simply not be associated with my real name online. lol. lmao.

bagels 4y ago

https://archive.is/ekCx0 https://archive.is/ekCx0

petermcneeley 4y ago

I see; the problem with these giant draconian surveillance systems is that they are not always accurate. Dont worry I am sure they can solve that problem.

can16358p 4y ago

There should be HUGE penalty and FULL compensation for falsely accusing and arresting and innocent person.

jgaa 4y ago
If an innocent person is arrested because the police did not thoroughly examine the evidence, then the police officers and the prosecutor should be reviewed and criminally charged if they broke the law. No exceptions.

js2 4y ago

Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam) - Mistake? Haha. We don't make mistakes. https://youtu.be/wzFmPFLIH5s https://youtu.be/wzFmPFLIH5s

99_00 4y ago

The cops didn't even look at the suspect and compare him to the surveillance image. The judge approved the arrest warrant on the basis of AI alone. And people want to blame Clearview? Why? Do you actually care about wrongful arrests? Because when you take Clearview out of the picture, you still have these incompetent or overworked human beings cutting corners, arresting people, and having those people take a plea deals because they don't have money for lawyers so they can make their numbers and get whatever incentive they are chasing.

JamesAdir 4y ago

The framing of the headline is wrong - Police failed to do their job properly. This isn't related to Clearview or the laptop they write their reports on. Putting the technology aspect in the headline is just to lure in more clicks. Would expected more from a publication like the NYT.

croes 4y ago

This is another proof that "if you have nothing to hide, you jave nothing to fear" is wrong".

fwlr 4y ago

A classic case of “facial recognition technology inherits the morality of its users”. I expect if you investigate the police department that issued the arrest warrant you’d find an awful litany of arrests based on flimsy evidence. Face rec tech allows that shoddy policing to scale dramatically, transcend state borders, etc. Other commenters have mentioned the “five minute online judge” eWarrant tech and it certainly deserves credit for a supporting role.

low_tech_love 4y ago

”Clearview scraped billions of photos from the public web, including social media sites, to create a face-based search engine now used by law enforcement agencies.” What the *%#€!?