MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-02-05 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Facial Reconition Software
|
YouTube, Venmo demand AI firm stop taking facial data from sites
Economy Feb 5, 2020 7:47 PM EST
Payment service Venmo joined YouTube and Twitter on Wednesday in
demanding that a facial recognition company stop harvesting user images
to identify the people in them, which the startup does as part of its
work with police.
Venmo said Wednesday it is sending a cease-and-desist letter to New
York-based Clearview AI. The small firm has drawn scrutiny following
investigative reports in January by the New York Times and Buzzfeed
detailing its work with law enforcement agencies and its practice of
scraping social media and other internet platforms for images.
“Scraping Venmo is a violation of our terms of service and we actively
work to limit and block activity that violates these policies,” said
Venmo spokesman Justin Higgs, who said the Paypal-owned mobile payment
service is in the process of sending the letter.
Google-owned video service YouTube sent a similar letter to Clearview on
Tuesday.
“YouTube’s Terms of Service explicitly forbid collecting data that can
be used to identify a person,” YouTube spokesman Alex Joseph said in a
statement Wednesday. “Clearview has publicly admitted to doing exactly
that, and in response we sent them a cease and desist letter.”
READ MORE: San Francisco bans use of facial recognition technology by police
Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That told CBS in an interview that it has a First
Amendment right to the roughly 3 billion images it has collected.
“The way we have built our system is to only take publicly available
information and index it that way,” he told CBS.
He also said the technology is only used by law enforcement to identify
potential criminals.
CBS was first to report the YouTube letter Wednesday. Twitter sent a
similar letter in January and ordered Clearview to delete all the data
it has collected from Twitter, including anything already shared with
third parties. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn said Wednesday it is also
looking into it and will take “appropriate action” if Clearview violated
its terms.
Clearview attorney Tor Ekeland said in a statement Wednesday that the
company’s technology “operates much in the same way as Google’s search
engine.”
Left: FILE PHOTO: A picture illustration shows a YouTube logo reflected
in a person's eye June 18, 2014. The picture was flipped horizontally.
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Related
London police to use facial recognition cameras, stoking privacy fears
By Kelvin Chan, Associated Press
Google CEO calls for regulation of artificial intelligence
By Kelvin Chan, Associated Press
How using facial analysis in job interviews could reinforce inequality
By Ivan Manokha, The Conversation
Go Deeper
facial recognition
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