According to documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News, people associated with 2,228 law enforcement agencies, companies, and institutions have created accounts and collectively performed nearly 500,000 searches - all of them tracked and logged by the company. Some organizations did not have log-ins or did not run searches, according to the documents, and BuzzFeed News is only disclosing the entities that have established at least one account and performed at least one search.Įven with that criteria, the numbers are staggering and illustrate how Clearview AI, a small startup founded three years ago, has been able to get its software to employees at some of the world’s most powerful organizations. BuzzFeed News authenticated the logs, which list about 2,900 institutions and include details such as the number of log-ins, the number of searches, and the date of the last search. The internal documents, which were uncovered by a source who declined to be named for fear of retribution from the company or the government agencies named in them, detail just how far Clearview has been able to distribute its technology, providing it to people everywhere, from college security departments to attorneys general offices, and in countries from Australia to Saudi Arabia. In a January interview with the New York Times, Ton-That said the company was working with 600 law enforcement agencies across the country and had provided the software, which can be used on a desktop computer or through a mobile app, to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. As there is an ongoing Federal investigation, we have no further comment."Ĭlearview has attracted a whirlwind of attention for claiming it had built unprecedented facial recognition trained on an ever-increasing database of more than 3 billion photos ripped from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other websites. In reply to an extensive list of questions, Clearview attorney Tor Ekeland said, "There are numerous inaccuracies in this illegally obtained information. Got a tip? Email one of the reporters of this story at or or contact us here. 5 statement to BuzzFeed News that his company was “focused on doing business in USA and Canada.” But in reality, Clearview AI has also been aggressively pursuing clients in industries such as law, retail, banking, and gaming and pushing into international markets in Europe, South America, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.
“It’s strictly for law enforcement,” Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That said on Fox Business earlier this month. The New York–based startup has claimed its controversial technology is intended as a tool for police and that it was prioritizing business in North America. This data provides the most complete picture to date of who has used the controversial technology and reveals what some observers have previously feared: Clearview AI’s facial recognition has been deployed at every level of American society and is making its way around the world. In doing so, Clearview has taken a flood-the-zone approach to seeking out new clients, providing access not just to organizations, but to individuals within those organizations - sometimes with little or no oversight or awareness from their own management.Ĭlearview’s software, which claims to match photos of persons of interest to online images culled from millions of sites, has been used by people in more than 2,200 law enforcement departments, government agencies, and companies across 27 countries, according to the documents. The company has credentialed users at the FBI, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Interpol, and hundreds of local police departments. In its quest to create a global biometric identification system to span both public and private sectors, Clearview has signed paid contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and Macy’s, according to the document obtained by BuzzFeed News. But new documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News reveal that it has already shared or sold its technology to thousands of organizations around the world. The startup, Clearview AI, is facing legal threats from Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as well as calls for regulation and scrutiny in the US. The United States’ main immigration enforcement agency, the Department of Justice, retailers including Best Buy and Macy’s, and a sovereign wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates are among the thousands of government entities and private businesses around the world listed as clients of the controversial facial recognition startup with a database of billions of photos scraped from social media and the web.
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