Clearview AI built a massive facial recognition database by scraping 30 billion photos from Facebook and other social media platforms without users’ permission, which law enforcement has accessed nearly a million times since 2017^[1].

The company markets its technology to law enforcement as a tool “to bring justice to victims,” with clients including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. However, privacy advocates argue it creates a “perpetual police line-up” that includes innocent people who could face wrongful arrests from misidentification^[1:1].

Major social media companies like Facebook sent cease-and-desist letters to Clearview AI in 2020 for violating user privacy. Meta claims it has since invested in technology to combat unauthorized scraping^[1:2].

While Clearview AI recently won an appeal against a £7.5m fine from the UK’s privacy watchdog, this was solely because the company only provides services to law enforcement outside the UK/EU. The ruling did not grant broad permission for data scraping activities^[2].

The risks extend beyond law enforcement use - once photos are scraped, individuals lose control over their biometric data permanently. Critics warn this could enable:

• Retroactive prosecution if laws change
• Creation of unauthorized AI training datasets
• Identity theft and digital abuse
• Commercial facial recognition systems without consent^[1:3]

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