Security News > 2021 > May > EU Privacy Groups Set Sights on Facial Recognition Firm
Privacy organisations on Thursday complained to regulators in five European countries over the practices of Clearview AI, a company that has built a powerful facial recognition database using images "Scraped" from the web.
While Clearview touts its technology's ability to help law enforcement, its critics say facial recognition is open to abuse and could ultimately eliminate anonymity in public spaces - pointing to cases like China's massive public surveillance system.
Facial recognition has also been attacked for failing to distinguish non-white people's faces and women as well as it can identify white, male images - potentially leading to false positives.
In February, Canada's privacy commissioner found that the firm's activity "Is mass surveillance and it is illegal" under the country's privacy laws.
Last year, tech firms including Microsoft and Amazon suspended sales of facial recognition software to police forces when confronted with 2020's Black Lives Matter movement.
"Tools for conducting facial recognition are widely available" even outside the big tech companies, according to journalist Nicolas Kayser-Bril, who complied a report on the technology for advocacy group AlgorithmWatch last year that found at least 10 European police forces using it.