In Finland, the data protection commissioner gave the police a warning about the use of the application and it was discontinued in 2021. In the United States, the police have already used it for almost a million searches.
According to the BBC (you will be switched to another service) police in the US still use the controversial facial recognition software Clearview.
Clearview has been criticized for using images it finds on various social media without users’ permission.
According to the BBC, the program has up to 30 billion images saved from sites like Facebook.
Founder of Clearview Hoan Ton-That tells the BBC that the American police have already made almost a million searches with the program.
Makes everyone suspect
Clearview has received criticism for a long time.
The company behind it has been fined several times in both Europe and Australia.
Police using the service can optionally upload a photo of a crime suspect to the program, which compares it to billions of photos found on social media.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends digital civil rights, interviewed by the BBC Matthew Guaragilian according to this is problematic in terms of privacy protection.
– Whenever they have a photo of a suspect, they compare it to your face. This goes way too far, he says.
In Finland, KRP stopped using the program after the notice
The Clearview program is no longer used by the Finnish police.
The Central Criminal Police stopped using it in 2021 after receiving a notice from the Data Protection Commissioner.
KRP’s child sexual abuse unit used the facial recognition program at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020.
KRP managed to make a total of 120 searches with Clearview.
Police Board then made the report yourself (you will switch to another service) on the matter to the data protection authorities.