Clearview AI

Face recognition is identifying people who have been killed, displaced, or recorded perpetrating alleged war crimes in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Clearview AI made its face recognition system freely available to the Ukrainian government.

Face recognition algorithms have come under scrutiny for misidentifying individuals. A U.S. government agency tested over 1,000 of them to see which are the most reliable.

What if AI-enabled monitoring isn’t just for dictators and despots?The fear: Under the pretext of maintaining law and order, even countries founded on a commitment to individual rights allow police to take advantage of smart-city infrastructure and smart-home devices.

A U.S. government watchdog agency called for stronger face recognition protocols for federal agencies. An audit found that, while many employ face recognition, they may not know where it came from, how it’s being used, or the hazards involved.

Datasets for training face recognition models have ballooned in size — while slipping in quality and respect for privacy. In a survey of 130 datasets compiled over the last four decades, researchers traced how the need for increasing quantities of data led researchers to relax their standards.

Face recognition is being used to identify people involved in last week’s assault on the U.S. Capitol. It’s also being misused to support their cause.

Three of the biggest AI vendors pledged to stop providing face recognition services to police — but other companies continue to serve the law-enforcement market.

What if you could identify just about anyone from a photo? A controversial startup is making this possible. Hundreds of U.S. law enforcement agencies are using a face ID service that matches photos against a database of billions of images.