What About Privacy?

Clearview AI

What About Privacy?

Dacey Cervantes, Senior Spotlight Editor

Ever heard of privacy? May or may not be crossing the line but could it be his fault or is it us civilians? Hoan Ton-That has come up with a new app named Clearview AI, an unregulated facial recognition app that takes photos from various apps such as, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Venmo and millions of others. To get the photos apart of this app, you simply just take a picture of a person on this app, upload it, and out comes all the public photos the individual has either posted, been tagged in, or even appear in.

I feel as though this is crazy and uncalled; however, on the other hand I feel as though it could be helpful to solve cases for law enforcement. Clearview has obtained over three billion photos across millions of websites. On top of the fact that no one is positive  how this app works, federal and state law enforcement officers say they have little to no knowledge on how it works either. To me, I believe an app should not be used in any way, shape, or form if federal or state law enforcement doesn’t have the full knowledge on how it works.

Clearview AI logo

I think the app basically stalks everyone world wide to collect all their photos posted. No one agreed to have their photos taken and put into this app with information on all their social medias (where the photo came from). Plus no matter if the app has already been used to help solve shoplifting, identity theft, credit card fraud, murder and child sexual exploitation cases, it still hasn’t technically been completely vetted by federal law enforcement. It’s great that this app can help solve a variety of cases with facial recognition but has Mr. Ton-That taken it too far as to search all social media to obtain so many photos. I believe he has gone just a little past the line of okay. Yes, we do need better technology to help solve cases, but this app is groundbreaking, and I don’t believe in a good way.  Maybe you do, and that’s great but think about it, did you agree to have all the photos you’ve posted or even appear in to be taken and put into basically a file with your name and all your social medias?

Clearview AI could be a great app but it also could begin so many more cat fishing, identity theft, and many more cases along those lines. We’ll just have to see, but as of now I think the app should be in trial not in use to the public.