Clearview AI, Used by Police to Find Criminals, Now in Public Defenders' Hands

For the last few years, Clearview AI's tool has been largely restricted to law enforcement, but the company now plans to offer access to public defenders. Hoan Ton-That, the chief executive, said this would help "balance the scales of justice," but critics of the company are skeptical given the legal and ethical concerns that swirl around Clearview AI's groundbreaking technology. The company scraped billions of faces from social media sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, and other parts of the web in order to build an app that seeks to unearth every public photo of a person that exists online. "I think it's a rare situation in which most defense attorneys would want to use it," said Jerome Greco, who oversees a forensics technology lab at the Legal Aid Society, in New York City. "This is mostly being done as a P.R. stunt to try to push back against the negative publicity that Clearview has about its tool and how it's being used by law enforcement."