New Jersey state attorney general prohibits police from using facial recognition software

New Jersey's attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal, has instructed prosecutors across the state to stop using Clearview AI, a private facial recognition software. Clearview AI's tools allow law enforcement officials to upload a photo of an unknown person they'd like to identify, and see a list of matches culled from a database of over 3 billion photos. The photos are taken from a variety of controversial sources, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and even Venmo. New Jersey attorney general Gurbir S. Grewal told the state's prosecutor's to stop using Clearview AI, private facial recognition software that he worried might compromise the integrity of the state's investigations Grewal decided to issue the ban after seeing Clearview had used footage from a 2019 sting operation in New Jersey promoting its own services, something even he hadn't been aware of at the time. 'I was surprised they used my image and the office to promote the product online," Grewal told the New York Times. 'I was troubled they were sharing information about ongoing criminal prosecutions.' After investigating the issue, Gerwal confirmed one of the 19 people arrested in the sting had been identified using Clearview, but since all the cases were ongoing, he felt uncomfortable with them being used in promotional material. Another report in the Times, on the controversial practices used to generate the company's massive database, further worried Grewal and prompted him to issue the ban. 'Until this week, I had not heard of Clearview AI," he said.