A Government Watchdog May Have Missed Clearview AI Use By Five Federal Agencies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: A government inquiry into federal agencies' deployment of facial recognition may have overlooked some organizations' use of popular biometric identification software Clearview AI, calling into question whether authorities can understand the extent to which the emerging technology has been used by taxpayer-funded entities. In a 92-page report published by the Government Accountability Office on Tuesday, five agencies -- the US Capitol Police, the US Probation Office, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, Transportation Security Administration, and the Criminal Investigation Division at the Internal Revenue Service -- said they didn't use Clearview AI between April 2018 and March 2020. This, however, contradicts internal Clearview data previously reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

In April, BuzzFeed News revealed that those five agencies were among more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities that had employees who tried or used Clearview AI, based on internal company data. As part of that story, BuzzFeed News published a searchable table disclosing all the federal, state, and city government organizations whose employees are listed in the data as having used the facial recognition software as of February 2020. While the GAO was tasked with "review[ing] federal law enforcement use of facial recognition technology," the discrepancies between the report, which was based on survey responses and BuzzFeed News' past reporting, suggest that even the US government may not be equipped to track how its own agencies access to surveillance tools like Clearview. The GAO report surveyed 42 federal agencies in total, 20 of which reported that they either owned their own facial recognition system or used one developed by a third party between April 2018 and March 2020. Ten federal agencies -- including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection -- said they specifically used Clearview AI.

The government lied?

[lessSockMorePuppet]

I'm shocked that there's lying going on here! Shocked, I tell you.

Re:

[CaptQuark]

Or is this another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?

Re:

[Rockoon]

Ii the left hand simultaneously claiming to know what the right hand is doing?

If so then its still a lie, yes? just a different one?

Few people understand this fucking concept, that one of two mutually exclusive things is true and therefore one of those two things is a lie if you have claimed both. Being half-right doesnt excuse here, because they HAD to be exactly half-right and HAD to be exactly lying on the other side of it.

Re:

[geekmux]

Or is this another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?

How's that old saying go? Something about ignorance not being a bullshit excuse for malice?

Imagine if a civilian were caught doing this today. Against the authority.

You'd be labeled a domestic terrorist, gifted with a throw-away-the-key sentence first. Ask questions later.

They knew damn well what they were doing. What they usually do, Ignore the law, and act above it. You just can't do jack shit about it.

Re:

[Entrope]

Another plausible explanation is that Buzzfeed is being Buzzfeed. Note the difference between the two conditions:

In April, BuzzFeed News revealed that those five agencies were among more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities that had employees who tried or used Clearview AI, based on internal company data.

While the GAO was tasked with "review[ing] federal law enforcement use of facial recognition technology,"

Non-law-enforcement use would allow both to be true, but that's too boring an explanation for Buz

Re:

[zlives]

Thank you for saying this, while i may not trust everything the government does or doesn’t say, it is good to have perspective.

Re:

[Mattcelt]

Non-law-enforcement use would allow both to be true

While I understand the distinction you're making, it doesn't apply in this context.

There is no one in a law enforcement agency or division whose behaviour does not constitute law enforcement. Even the FBI's beancounters who have no direct arrest power are still "law enforcement" for the purposes of the GAO's enquiry here.

If an employee of the FBI is using Clearview, it's "federal law enforcement use", per se.

Re:

[zlives]

Yes i too am amazed at the ability of AC to actually copy and paste, must be an intern.

Re:

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

"as of February 2020" implies that a certain Delirium Tremens was POTUS at the time. Does that affect the conspiracy theories?

Big Brother tells Big Lies

[harvey the nerd]

24 x 365

Re:

[gtall]

Ah yes, the olde They Must Be Lying syndrome from someone who has no experience. It is most likely that the agencies the GAO was to watch over had faulty internal reporting. The Buzzfeed folks didn't use that reporting mechanism but came in from the side and used other reporting mechanisms. Hence the discrepancy.

It does point, though, to the GAO needing better access to government agencies, and government agencies needing to spend some resources on their own internal organization. Now if only the money coul

Re:

[zlives]

Effective fed agencies defeat the premise of good governance.
This in turn defeats the whole no tax for the rich mantra.

Re:

[rickb928]

SO these agencies were either deceptive (knew and lied), deceptive (claimed their reporting was accurate and complete but was not), or deceptive (claimed they were offering complete and accurate information when they knew or should have known they were neither complete nor accurate.

Ok. I'm not surprised, This is to be expected. This is not our government any more, and hasn't been for a while.

There's a loophole in the wording.

[sabbede]

I haven't read the full article(s), but this line, "BuzzFeed News revealed that those five agencies were among more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities that had employees who tried or used Clearview AI", is worded in a way that clearly leaves room for agencies to have done a trial of Clearview's software without purchasing it and making it part of their official toolkit. That would make the claims of each side valid - the agencies could truthfully say they don't use it because they don't, they just tested it out to see if they wanted to use it; while BuzzFeed (really?) can accurately report that yes, they tried it.

But so what if they did? Who among us hasn't demoed software they didn't purchase?

Maybe it's just a quirk of summarization, or is irrelevant because the listed agencies did buy licenses and the trials were at the Dept. of Interior or something. Or, maybe BuzzFeed is being willfully dishonest in presenting something banal as scandalous in order to get more clicks. I'll know more after actually reading it, but that is a big red flag.

Re:

[sabbede]

And yes, it does seem that for the listed agencies, the instances of use were trials or demos. BuzzFeed's table includes an approximate number of searches performed by each agency, and when a massive Federal agency shows 11-50 searches, and the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office shows over 5001, it is reasonable to conclude that the agency performing a dozen or so searches did not purchase licenses.

The troubling part isn't that employees did a free trial of facial recognition software, it's that the a