A controversial company that was recently criticized for compiling billions of images downloaded from Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo said its entire client list was stolen during a security failure.
Clearview AI, a facial-recognition startup that has faced scrutiny from privacy advocates, notified customers on Wednesday that an intruder “gained unauthorized access” to its list of customers and private data associated with the number of accounts set up by users and searches within the Clearview database. The company told users the intruder was unable to compromise Clearview’s systems or network.
“If you’re a law-enforcement agency, it’s a big deal, because you depend on Clearview as a service provider to have good security, and it seems like they don’t,” Aspen Cybersecurity Group Managing Director David Forscey told the Daily Beast.
Founder Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer whiz who once considered a modeling career after multiple startup failures, started Clearview AI after a chance meeting at the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute. He founded the company with the help of former New York Daily News editor Richard Schwartz and was provided funding from venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Law enforcement agencies were the first to show interest in the software, which could fundamentally change the way authorities monitor the public.
The Indiana State Police reported solving a murder that had been recorded on video within 20 minutes of using the app. Chuck Cohen, a former Indiana State Police captain who used the software, confirmed the suspect had never appeared in any government database because he didn’t have a license and had never committed a crime.
The massive image database has also provided authorities with a way to identify victims of sexual abuse, with one unnamed Canadian official calling it “the biggest breakthrough in the last decade” for investigating such crimes.
Privacy advocates have bristled at the alarming pace that facial-recognition databases are being built and the realization that police will utilize the tools as surveillance on the public in the future. But David Scalzo, an early investor in Clearview AI, said it’s impossible to turn back the technological advancements currently being created and that privacy laws will have to adapt with the coming times.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that because information constantly increases, there’s never going to be privacy,” Scalzo told the New York Times. “Laws have to determine what’s legal, but you can’t ban technology. Sure, that might lead to a dystopian future or something, but you can’t ban it.”
Clearview AI’s attorney Tor Ekeland said the company’s servers were never accessed but that “unfortunately, data breaches are a part of life.”
