Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app: take a picture of a person, upload it & get to see public photos of that person & links to where those photos appeared. The system has a database of more than 3 billion images ( from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo etc.) goes far beyond anything ever constructed here. Technology that readily identifies everyone based on their faces has been taboo because of its radical erosion of privacy. Tech companies capable of releasing such a tool have refrained from doing so; in 2011, Google’s chairman said the company had held back because it could be used “in a very bad way.” Even if Clearview doesn’t make its app publicly available, a copycat company might, now that the taboo is broken. Searching someone by face could become as easy as Googling a name."
At www.nytimes.com
