Facebook has warned US-based tech company Clearview AI to stop using data scraped from its social networks for its facial recognition database.
“Scraping people’s information violates our policies, which is why we’ve demanded that Clearview stop accessing or using information from Facebook or Instagram”, a Facebook spokesperson said.
YouTube, Twitter and payment service Venmo also joined in demanding an end to Clearview’s practice of scraping social media and other platforms for images. Clearview has drawn controversy following investigative reports that found it was working with law enforcement agencies.
“Scraping Venmo is a violation of our terms of service and we actively work to limit and block activity that violates these policies”, a Venmo spokesman said.
“YouTube’s Terms of Service explicitly forbid collecting data that can be used to identify a person. Clearview has publicly admitted to doing exactly that and in response, we sent them a cease and desist letter”, a YouTube spokesman said.
Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That defended the company’s practices, saying the technology is only used by law enforcement to identify potential criminals: “The way we have built our system is to only take publicly available information and index it that way”, he said.
Experts say that without explicit permission to use the photos it relies on, Clearview may be a subject of legal challenges and will likely end up in court.
