facial recognition

Clearview AI, a facial recognition firm, has carried out almost one million searches for US police. The technology, which has raised concerns over privacy breaches, allows law enforcement officials to upload a suspect’s photo and compare it to the billions of images in the company’s database. In an interview with the BBC, Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That stated that the company had scraped 30 billion images from sites like Facebook without user consent.

Knightscope, developer of security robots, has launched its Automatic Criminal Detection Capability (ACDCTM) feature, a real-time and extensive criminal data intelligence solution, ACDCTM utilizes the facial recognition technology on K1 ASRs and a legal open-source database of over 75 million criminal law enforcement files to detect and alert users to a person previously convicted of a crime or possible threats on their property.

Facebook announced it is shutting down its Face Recognition system. People who’ve opted in will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos. As a consequence Facebook will delete more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates. The company stated it ‘needed to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules.’

According to Russian press agency TASS the Moscow police force uses a facial recognition system to detect participants in demonstrations against the government. The system is said to detected those who had been put on a database for their repeated participation in ‘unauthorized events’.

Amnesty International today launches a global campaign to ban the use of facial recognition systems, a form of mass surveillance that amplifies racist policing and threatens the right to protest.

NEC has introduced a facial recognition system that identifies people even when they are wearing masks. The Japanese technology firm had already been working on this system to meet the needs of allergy sufferers who wear masks when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.