The chief executive of the U.S.-based facial recognition Clearview AI announced that Ukraine started using their tool to identify people of interest at checkpoints, recognize deaths, and more.
Some of the data used are from Russia's social media platform VKontakte.
Ukraine Uses Clearview AI Facial Recognition Technology
In an exclusive report from Reuters, Clearview AI company chief executive stated that the defense ministry of Ukraine started using the Clearview AI facial recognition technology on Saturday, March 12.
This move occurred after the facial recognition company offered to reveal Russian assailants, identify deaths, and combat misinformation.
Reuters also reported that an adviser to Clearview AI and former diplomat under the Barack Obama and Joe Biden administration Lee Wolosky informed the news site that Ukraine has free access to Clearview AI's search engine technology.
Moreover, this technology was used to search for faces, allowing authorities to identify people of interest at checkpoints.
For background information, this move occurred after Clearview AI Chief Executive Hoan Ton-That sent a letter to Kyiv offering assistance following the invasion of Russia to Ukraine, according to a copy seen by Reuters.
Even though a copy of a letter was acquired, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense did not release a statement addressing this issue.
To provide details about its effectiveness and data-gathering capabilities, the Clearview AI founder explained that out of a database of over 10 billion photos, a total of more than 2 billion images are from the Russian social media service VKontakte.
How Clearview AI Facial Recognition Works
According to Kaspersky, facial recognition technology works through identifying or confirming a person's identity using their facial features. This technology can be used to recognize people in photos, videos, and more.
Since it involves the unique identification of people, this system falls into a biometric security category.
Other biometric security categories include voice recognition, fingerprint recognition, and iris recognition. Kaspersky also explained that facial recognition technology is "mostly used for security and law enforcement, though there is increasing interest in other areas of use."
In relation to this, Clearview AI uses this technology claiming that they are "the world's largest facial network."
For those curious to know how it works, Vox reported that if: "You have an image of a person, but you don't know their name. You could input that photo into Clearview's app, and it will turn up any image of the person that it had scraped from the internet, as well as links to websites from which those images came."
On the other hand, the company explained that "Clearview AI is a privately-owned, U.S.-based company, dedicated to innovating and providing the most cutting-edge technology to law enforcement to investigate crimes, enhance public safety and provide justice to victims."
Through their web-based intelligence platform, it helps law enforcement to have high-quality investigative leads.
With regards to their acquired data, Clearview AI stated that they have more than 10 billion facial images sourced from public-only web sources. The said sources include news media, mugshot websites, public social media, and other open sources.
Moreover, the company further stated, "Our solutions allow agencies to gain intelligence and disrupt crime by revealing leads, insights, and relationships to help investigators solve both simple and complex crimes, increase officer and public safety, and keep our communities and families safer."
Despite the benefit it brings, Vox also stated that Clearview AI received cease-and-desist letters from several major online sites including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Venmo, Google, and YouTube for allegedly violating their respective terms and conditions.
