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AI Privacy Security

Before Clearview Became a Police Tool, It Was a Secret Plaything of the Rich (nytimes.com) 66

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Investors and clients of the facial recognition start-up freely used the app on dates and at parties -- and to spy on the public. From a report: One Tuesday night in October 2018, John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the Gristedes grocery store chain, was having dinner at Cipriani, an upscale Italian restaurant in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, when his daughter, Andrea, walked in. She was on a date with a man Mr. Catsimatidis didn't recognize. After the couple sat down at another table, Mr. Catsimatidis asked a waiter to go over and take a photo. Mr. Catsimatidis then uploaded the picture to a facial recognition app, Clearview AI, on his phone. The start-up behind the app has a database of billions of photos, scraped from sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Within seconds, Mr. Catsimatidis was viewing a collection of photos of the mystery man, along with the web addresses where they appeared: His daughter's date was a venture capitalist from San Francisco.. Ms. Catsimatidis said she and her date had no idea how her father had identified him so quickly.

Clearview was unknown to the general public until this January, when The New York Times reported that the secretive start-up had developed a breakthrough facial recognition system that was in use by hundreds of law enforcement agencies. The company quickly faced a backlash on multiple fronts. Facebook, Google and other tech giants sent cease-and-desist letters. Lawsuits were filed in Illinois and Virginia, and the attorney general of New Jersey issued a moratorium against the app in that state. [...] The Times, however, has identified multiple individuals with active access to Clearview's technology who are not law enforcement officials. And for more than a year before the company became the subject of public scrutiny, the app had been freely used in the wild by the company's investors, clients and friends.
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Before Clearview Became a Police Tool, It Was a Secret Plaything of the Rich More

Before Clearview Became a Police Tool, It Was a Secret Plaything of the Rich

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  • Clearview CEO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @11:49AM (#59803276)
    He appears very creepy to me and I don't care for his personal mannerisms while he speaks.
    • He's that guy that makes all kinds of sucking and popping noises from his mouth at the dinner table.

    • He is a CEO.
      We don't have to like him.
      He doesn't need to be a good person.
      All we expect of a good CEO is they keep the company growing and profitable.

      • And that in a nutshell (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @12:00PM (#59803318)
        is the fundamental problem with our civilization. We've set up a system where being a psychopath is actively rewarded with positions in leadership.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by g01d4 ( 888748 )
          Not sure it's a "fundamental problem". I recall reading somewhere that this is a trade-off a civilization has made to enhance it's survival. That is, an occasional person with traits that are related or correlated with certain pathologies can help a civilization, if not progress, then to survive under certain types situations.
          • we've progressed past that. What you're referring to is that a psychopath will cull the population (either by war or pograms) to reduce the need for food during famine. We've long since passed the point where we can feed everyone on the plant. [youtube.com]

            Things change. Civilizations come and go. Sometimes they don't go through violence but through gradual changes and technological improvements. Psychopaths were only a "good" thing in that they solved certain problems.

            Honestly though it's debatable if we would h
            • > I mean, how many thousands of years behind the technological curve are we because of how much time and effort we spent killing ourselves?

              I think competition and cooperation are essential for progress. They balance each other out. You can't have all cooperation and still be able to evolve.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by spun ( 1352 )

            Genes create a spectrum of behaviors. Having a few of the genes that code for sociopathic behavior may make one a better leader, but having many of them is a handicap. It's not that "sometimes being a sociopath creates a survival advantage" it's more that having one or two of the genes that code for specific parts of sociopathy can make one a better leader or better in survival situations. So individually, the genes are selected for, and sometimes that leads to an individual getting too many of those genes.

        • No system was set up. That's the way things happen to work. Companies are natural things because humans have a natural tendency to work together to accomplish goals. In our modern society, we add some structure to that. Our society follows some basic rules. Rules such as "you reap what you sow". We don't walk around asking people "are you a psychopath" and then offer positions of CEO to the ones that are.

          You may not like him, but he is free to pursue his talents to do the best he can for himself and his

          • Re: And that in a nutshell (Score:5, Insightful)

            by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary@@@yahoo...com> on Friday March 06, 2020 @01:55PM (#59803718) Journal

            How is this sociopathic fellow you praise not rigging the system the way he feels it should be set up? That's what the rich do. They put time and money into achieving their political goals because it works for them, why on earth should the average person be shamed for doing the same thing?

            There is no free and open cooperation or competition among sociopaths. They lie and cheat and rig the game remorselessly, because they are physiologically incapable of remorse. They use coercion every day because it works, and they can't possibly regret the harm thy cause to others when using it.

            In a constitutional democracy, We, the People are the authority. We set up the system to benefit the largest number of people fairly, rather than rigging the game to benefit those who have no conscience.

            If might makes right, then when the people get together, they have the might, and therefore the right. If might does not make right, then why worship those who profess to be strong?

            Some times it is okay for a group of people to tell an individual that their behavior is unacceptable. Whether something counts as "Initiation of force" really depends on who is asking, doesn't it?

          • they're constructs we built to protect people from liability and grant ownership of certain things to certain people. Human kind existed for thousands of years without them using feudalism. There are plenty of other models.

            Basically you find these things natural because the systems were in place long before you were born. If you were born into feudalism you'd find than natural. It takes time, care and effort to analyzie and see the systems that govern your daily life.

            Anyway here's two examples just
            • which another posted reminded me of: the 1% write laws which politicians around the country pass verbatim. They're called "template laws". The politicians pass them in exchange for bribes, which were legalized in a Supreme Court decision (Citizens United).

              If that's not rigging the system then, well, you've moved the goal post too far. Maybe NASA could help...

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by wv5k ( 771543 )
              ;-) Oh, to have Points today...

            • You americans are really weird.

        • do you believe this is a 'new' phenomenon?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Not really. The NYT has an article on the rise in suicides, deaths by drinking, drugs, etc. afflicting Americans. It seems the capitalist notion of putting profit above all else, and its subsequent effects of devaluing workers, offshoring, etc., is causing middle and low income Americans to die much younger.

        If the company is only concerned with profit and growth, then Americans will continue to suffer the consequences.

        • well yes. But as the OP stated. We don't care.

        • If the population is getting to a point where working is untolerable, they will stop working and not be customers of products.
          There are also cases where there CEO who are jad bad people, however people work for the company because of good HR policies and benefits.
          While fictional I like to think of the Episode of the Simpsons with Scorpio. This guy was a Bond Supervillain, however his minions love to work for him, because he created a good working environment.

          There are a lot of studies showing how profit is

      • Of course, because his value as a human being begins and ends with his job title! Because Capitalism!

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by spun ( 1352 )

        He is the cappo di tutti capi.
        We don't have to like him.
        He doesn't need to be a good person.
        All we expect of a good mob boss is they keep the family growing and profitable.

      • ...and HERE is the root of our broken capitalistic society.

        As if money were the only concern!

    • Sounds like a lot of the regulars on slashdot.

  • what's with all the class warfare/ divide and conquer articles coming out from 'msmash'?

    to keep people in-fighting? perhaps msmash is somehow benefitting from keeping the proles fighting amongst themselves?

    I don't mind people having an agenda to push; it's the secretive aspect of it that smells like shit, usually because it's a shitty agenda and being forthright and honest about has been deemed unproductive.... so let's just skip over that part

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yah, I skipped over your post when I realized it was vacuous innuendo masquerading as insight.

      • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

        by jm007 ( 746228 )
        but then took the time to comment on something you skipped over?

        while you're looking up big words to use, try understanding what they mean first

  • So basically like every other piece of technology? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @12:05PM (#59803346)
    So this is basically just like every other piece of technology? All this means is that it's on its way to the masses. Otherwise just do a simple substitution with anything else we've had over the years:

    Before automobiles became widely available to the public, they were a plaything of the rich.
    Before cell phones became widely available to the public, they were a plaything of the rich.
    Before computers became widely available to the public, they were a plaything of the rich.

    Any new technology is hideously expensive at first which limits the potential customer base. If you can find a few people to foot enough of the bill while you work out the kinks and get the production costs down you might just be able to survive as a business.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jm007 ( 746228 )
      I agree with your assessment

      others will use this to agitate and promote class warfare, which is just divide and conquer writ large

      using your comment as a template, I present a hypothetical:

      let's say the app was free to use for anyone, would only the dirtbag rich use it to snoop in on people? hell no, everyone, including the dirtbag poor and dirtbag middle would; this is not a rich/poor thing, just a people thing

      attempts to present it as anything else is an attempt to exploit it for advantage,

    • Re:So basically like every other piece of technolo (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @01:00PM (#59803538) Homepage

      I'm conflicted on this being accessible by everyone. On one hand, the privacy concerns are extremely numerous. I don't want someone to be able to tell everything about me just because I walked by them on the street. On the other hand, I have an extremely hard time remembering faces and names. People will often come up to me and talk to me like they know me. I've gotten very good at faking recognition, but it would be nice if I had a heads up display (think Google Glasses without the negative connotations that name brings up) that would say "This is John Smith. You worked with him on the Widgets project 3 months ago."

      How you balance the benefits that people like me could receive versus the privacy costs is a question I don't have the answer to. It's something society as a whole will need to decide on.

    • Re:So basically like every other piece of technolo (Score:4, Insightful)

      by shilly ( 142940 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @01:40PM (#59803662)

      You've posited a strawman: the line wasn't "Before Clearview became widely available to the public, they were a plaything of the rich"; it was "Before Clearview became a police tool, it was a secret plaything of the rich".

      This tech is not for sale to the general public, because of its potential for causing significant harm when mis-used. Yet some rich people got to use it despite not having the accountability, binding oaths and at least figleaf of proportionate need, and what's more they got to hide the fact they were using it. That's what the problem was. It was nothing to do with rich people getting access before poor people.

    • Re:So basically like every other piece of technolo (Score:4, Insightful)

      by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @01:51PM (#59803704)

      Or like how the world used to be 50 years ago. Most people used to live in small rural communities. If your daughter walked in on a date with a guy... you know him, you knew who his parents were, you know his grandparents, you know who his sister is dating, you knew who he used to date, you knew...

      This brief blip of anonymity is by and large the weird part in human history.

  • Meh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @12:08PM (#59803358)
    The rich have always had these kinds of capabilities available to them (private investigators, personal security consultants, etc), just not so rapidly due to the improvement in technology. And if Mr. Gristedes wants to cyberstalk his daughter's dates, that's a family dynamic fight I have no dog in and therefore no opinion (even as I secretly wish it will explode in his face). The concern is the use by law enforcement, and to some extent it seems like that problem may be self correcting as lawsuits and new laws rain down from the heavens upon Clearview. Will the technology survive on some black server where it continues to be accessed by law enforcement personnel, even extra-judicially?. Probably. But there doesn't seem to be much any of us can do about that except vote for candidates who espouse pro-privacy policies and vote against candidates with a record of supporting crap like the Patriot Act. It's not like I can wave a wand and make it so the technology never existed and would never be discovered in the future.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Vanyle ( 5553318 )
      This is just not true. If I gave a random person's picture to a PI with no other information, they would not be able to identify them.
      • But it's not with no other information. You get a picture of a guy sitting at a table in a restaurant with your daughter to a PI, he perhaps discreetly talks to her friends or asks the waitstaff if they've seen him before, or canvases other local businesses for information. He assesses her schedule to determine where she might have met this person. They can stake out either her house or the restaurant, and follow the guy when he shows up where ever he goes, until he reaches a home address or a place of b

        • And the difference is the cost. The old timey "shoe leather" way costs $$$$$, while the modern day Clearview way costs $.

          And that cost difference create a huge scale difference and opens it up to all kinds of abuse by all kinds of people. Think of the people that were illegally buying cell phone location data and selling access to Bounty Hunters, Repo and others. In fact Clearview make this kind of thing economic for stalkers and other bad actors and that's a HUGE concern, not even considering the privacy i

  • Now, if the venture guy had alerts that someone was doing a search, and was notified, then we'd be talking about an awkward family moment...

  • FindFace had already done the same in Russia harvesting the VKontakte social network four years ago:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/te... [theatlantic.com]

    Interestingly enough the article above was asking rethorically
    "Could someone do the same thing to Facebook? Probably not."

    PI

  • If we are concerned about law enforcement using this make it illegal for LE to use it. Any evidence collected as a result would be inadmissible in court and any LE officer using it would be liable for damages. --
  • Seems like the real problem here is you don't have to actively participate in social media to get caught up in this - you just need to be associated with someone who does now or did at some point in the last few years. So the idea that you can somehow "opt out" by being discrete in your sharing is basically dead on arrival. Just because we have the technology to index and search vast amounts of photos doesn't mean we should - where is the NRA when you need them? They've been fighting against "gun registr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jm007 ( 746228 )
      yes, these are the issues that are of concern, not 'the rich are once again screwing over the poor', which is a real issue, btw, just not on this topic

      excellent NRA angle, hadn't thought of that before

      • From the article:

        Clearview received a seed investment round of about $1 million in July 2018. Its backers included the billionaire investor Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist David Scalzo and Hal Lambert, an investor in Texas who runs an exchange-traded fund with the ticker symbol “MAGA,” which tracks companies that align with Republican politics.

        So already you got tracking of companies by political alignment. Why wouldn't people use this to track gun owners?

        in 2013 New York Times released a ma

  • I suspect that banning anyone from having and using this mass facial recognition database is impossible. Someone is going to aggregate this data. I think the only way to avoid an extreme power imbalance is to make the database freely accessible by everyone. Rich and poor can equally monitor each other. Police can monitor citizens, and citizens can monitor police. Politicians can track journalists, and journalists can track politicians. I do not see another path that is not authoritarian regime empowering. H

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Falos ( 2905315 )

      It's not like the access itself is the consequential part. What you'd want to scrutinize are the various forms of execution people decide they want to run off with, as usual.

      We can't uninvent polygraphs but we can say "no, you can't equate this to real evidence, you CANNOT say 'statement X was a lie' based on an expensive noisemaker."

      • True. But we already know that some of these databases+algorithms are waaaaaay more reliable than human witnesses to crimes, so if we're going to continue to admit human testimony, why wouldn't we admit facial recognition databases?
    • If facial recognition is good enough for billionaires, it's good enough for police. /sarcasm
  • It would be nice if we would get this service for use with our border to help, more quickly, pass people into this country.
  • doesn't look like him!
  • The real problem here is letting you plebs have access to the technology. Same reason people went to jail in the college admission scandals.... Commoners should not have the same privileges that others have, and u certainly don't want common folk using this to identify anyone they see.

  • ... is to watch who is using this app and who it is that they are spying on. Those who live by the sword ...

  • That's rich. Google upset that someone else is storing photos? Isn't google the #1 storage of photos in the world?
    Maybe they're afraid someone has a good image lookup engine for finding people.

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