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February 2020
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Documents Show Clearview Is Selling Facial Recognition Tech To Retailers, Fitness Centers, And Human Rights Violators

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Clearview -- the latest (and most troubling) entrant into the facial recognition tech sweepstakes -- says it's product is just for law enforcement. And law enforcement has seemingly welcomed the web-scraped facial recognition database with open arms. Clearview's marketing documents claim the company works with over 900 law enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere in the world.Clearview's app puts the agencies a few clicks away from over three billion images scraped from sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Those being scraped aren't happy about it but there's little they can do but engage in some cease-and-desist shouting.But Clearview's claim that it's only making this available to law enforcement agencies is false. New documents, obtained by BuzzFeed, show the company is selling its product to a number of other entities, both public and private.

The internal documents, which were uncovered by a source who declined to be named for fear of retribution from the company or the government agencies named in them, detail just how far Clearview has been able to distribute its technology, providing it to people everywhere, from college security departments to attorneys general offices, and in countries from Australia to Saudi Arabia.
That's the public sector buy-in. Here's the private sector's investment.
More than 200 companies have Clearview accounts, according to the documents, including major stores like Kohl’s and Walmart and banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America. While some of these entities have formal contracts with Clearview, the majority — as with public sector entities — appear to have only used the facial recognition software on free trials.
This list also includes a number of entertainment venues, casinos, fitness centers, and, oddly enough, the NBA.So, it's not just for cops. That might explain the company's hands-off attitude towards the entities it has publicly acknowledged it works with. Cops are encouraged to test-drive the software by searching friends and family members. Nothing like encouraging misuse right off the bat to dissuade law enforcement officers from using this tool for personal evil.As BuzzFeed notes, most of these appear to be limited trials of Clearview's software. But a few private entities are apparently paying for the privilege of running security camera footage against Clearview's scraped-together database.
Company logs reviewed by BuzzFeed News include Walmart (nearly 300 searches), Best Buy (more than 200 searches), grocer Albertsons (more than 40 searches), and Rite Aid (about 35 searches). Kohl’s, which has run more than 2,000 searches across 11 different accounts, and Macy’s, a paying customer that has completed more than 6,000, are among the private companies with the most searches.
Meanwhile, US agencies are enthusiastically participating in the exploitation of this crowdsourced (so to speak…) database. BuzzFeed notes the CBP has already registered 280 accounts and run almost 7,500 searches. The Secret Service isn't far behind, having run 5,600 searches. Other federal customers include the DEA, ATF, and FBI.Clearview has also stated its plan for international expansion begins and ends with Canada. This has already been exposed as untrue, but information in these documents shows how aggressively Clearview is pursuing customers around the world.
It shows that Clearview AI has expanded to at least 26 countries outside the US, engaging national law enforcement agencies, government bodies, and police forces in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
And while Clearview's CEO has promised not to sell to "adverse" countries like North Korea, China, and Iran, this is the only line it appears to have drawn. The documents show Clearview has offered its software to agencies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- both notorious violators of human rights.Clearview clearly can't be trusted. It has spent its limited time in the public eye lying about what it does and who it does it with. Hopefully, the endless negative press will deter its growth. Unfortunately, there's an undeniable market for unregulated facial recognition tech and Clearview's promise of billions of photos to match faces against beats everything else offered by anyone else. As long as the market exists, Clearview will fill it.

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posted at: 12:00am on 29-Feb-2020
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8chan Founder, Who Has Denounced The Site, Now Facing 'Criminal Cyberlibel' Charges From Current Owner

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Fredrick "Hotwheels" Brennan founded 8chan in 2013 after he and a group of other fairly naive souls felt that 4chan (yes, 4chan) had become too unfriendly to "free speech" because it had started to block some harassment and abuse on the site. It's always amazing to me the people who insist that internet platforms should allow all speech, without recognizing that what they are asking for is inevitably a cesspool of garbage. Brennan eventually realized as much, relinquished control over the site to Jim Watkins, and even called for the site to be shut down and criticized Watkins. Back in November, Watkins responded by filing a criminal "cyberlibel complaint" in the Philippines. The latest news, from the Filipino site Rappler, is that warrant has been issued for Brennan's arrest.There are so many insane things about this, it's difficult to know where to start. First of all, I'm always perplexed by people who position themselves as free speech absolutists then suing people for libel. It seems to kind of prove that they don't actually believe what they claim to, and have no problem using the powers of the state to silence speech they dislike.Second, the whole idea of criminal libel -- let alone the "cyber" variety -- seems positively insane, though we've seen it used before in the Philippines, including against Rappler founder, Maria Ressa. At the very least, it would seem to go against Section 4 of the Filipino Bill of Rights, which states:

No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.
Even the comments that Brennan made, that Watkins has filed these claims over, seem pretty ridiculous. Brennan had tweeted "My theory that Jim Watkins himself is going senile and actually believes in Q is no longer a theory" after it was reported that Watkins was wearing a "Q" pin when testifying before Congress. Calling someone senile would not be libel in the US, and the idea that it would be criminal makes no sense at all.Brennan happens to be in the US at this time and apparently has decided not to return to the Philippines (where both he and Watkins live) as long as the charges remain in place.
The surprise decision means that Brennan, who is confined to a wheelchair and suffers from a condition known as brittle bone disease, could face up to 12 years in prison.It's basically a death sentence, Brennan told VICE News from Los Angeles.
His lawyers have filed an appeal of the indictment, which is a fascinating read on its own. It opens with a Voltaire quote: "I may utterly detest what you write, but I shall fight to the death to make it possible for you to continue writing it." And then states:
VOLTAIRE'S PONTIFICAL VERSE bestirs once again thebasic liberties to free speech and free press -- liberties thatbelong as well, if not more, to those who question, who donot conform, who differ. For the ultimate good which we allstrive to achieve for ourselves and our posterity can better bereached by a free exchange of ideas, where the best test oftruth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in thecompetition of the free market -- not just the ideas we desire,but including those thoughts we despise.RESPONDENT-APPELLANT FREDRICK ROBERTBRENNAN ("Respondent"), by counsel, most respectfullyfiles this APPEAL/PETITION FOR REVIEW ("Appeal") tothe Honorable Secretary of Justice to REVERSE AND SETASIDE the highly arbitrary, completely baseless, grosslyunjustified and manifestly erroneous RESOLUTION of theinvestigating prosecutor Juliene Raymond A. Cabanacan,acting as Assistant City Prosecutor of Pasig City ("ACPCabanacan"), dated January 02, 2020 ("Resolution), copywas received by the undersigned counsel on February 19,2020, finding probable cause for the offense of cyber libelagainst respondent.For lack of attention to detail, ACP Cabanacanerroneously cited an incorrect provision of cyberlibel underRA 10175. He cited Section 4 paragraph 4 as an offense thathas been violated by respondent. This is defective and is notthe correct provision on Cyberlibel in RA 10175.
It goes on from there, but the presentation here is quite fascinating -- from the Voltaire quote to the "most respectfully" immediately followed by "highly arbitrary, completely baseless, grossly unjustified and manifestly erroneous" bit. One would hope that the DOJ would rethink this, but given what little we've seen of how this bizarre cyberlibel law is enforced in the Philippines, I wouldn't hold out much hope.

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posted at: 12:00am on 29-Feb-2020
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