Security News
New York facial recognition startup Clearview AI - which has amassed a huge database of more than three billion images scraped from employment sites, news sites, educational sites, and social networks including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Venmo - is being sued in a potential class action lawsuit that claims the company gobbled up photos out of "Pure greed" to sell to law enforcement. The suit against Clearview was just one chunk of shrapnel that flew after the New York Times published an exposé about how Clearview has been quietly selling access to faceprints and facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies across the US, claiming that it can identify a person based on a single photo, revealing their real name and far more.
In an effort to keep users safe - and when it comes to Tinder or other dating apps, that means keeping them from being raped, murdered or even, in one horrific case, dismembered - Tinder is incorporating a panic button into the app, as well as Artificial Intelligence-enabled photo recognition to help stop catfishing. The news about the panic button and other new safety features was announced on Thursday by Tinder's parent company, Match Group, which also owns pretty much all of the popular dating/hookup apps, including Match, PlentyOfFish, Meetic, OkCupid, OurTime, Pairs, and Hinge.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai this week threw his support behind a European Union proposal for a temporary ban on the use of facial recognition technology in public areas while regulators assess the risks associated with the technology. On Friday, Reuters reported that the European Union is considering a five-year ban on the use of facial recognition technology in public areas in order to work out ways to prevent abuses and protect user privacy for citizens who have not given consent.
The New York Times has a long story about Clearview AI, a small company that scrapes identified photos of people from pretty much everywhere, and then uses unstated magical AI technology to identify people in other photos. His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app.
During a House hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that the spread of surveillance via ubiquitous facial recognition is like something out of the tech dystopia TV show "Black Mirror." At one point, Ocasio-Cortez asked Meredith Whittaker - co-founder and co-director of New York University's AI Now Institute, who had noted in the hearing that facial recognition is a potential tool of authoritarian regimes - to remind the committee of some of the common ways that companies collect our facial recognition data.
VIVOTEK, the global leading IP surveillance solution provider, and CyberLink, a pioneer of AI and facial recognition technologies, announced they have entered into a strategic partnership, which will integrate CyberLink's FaceMe AI facial recognition engine into VIVOTEK's IP surveillance solutions. "Founded in 2000, VIVOTEK has been dedicated to the IP surveillance industry for 20 years. Entering the era of AIoT, we will continue global partnerships to accelerate and enhance video applications by joining forces with industry-leading analytic software providers."
On Tuesday, the digital rights group Fight for the Future announced that it's teamed up with Students for Sensible Drug Policy to ban the biometric technology from university campuses. Facial recognition surveillance spreading to college campuses would put students, faculty, and community members at risk.
CyberLink, a pioneer of AI and facial recognition technologies, announced that its FaceMe AI facial recognition engine has been integrated with iMedtac's Automatic Dispensing Cabinet. iMedtac is leading the charge by integrating AI and facial recognition to its new generation of AIoT-powered iHospital service platform.
Only certain cameras support Windows Hello facial recognition, and you have to set up the feature for it to scan and recognize your face. On the plus side, if you're able to set up facial recognition, you can use it for more than just signing in to Windows 10.
A new report from Juniper Research found that facial recognition hardware, such as Face ID on recent iPhones, will be the fastest growing form of smartphone biometric hardware. The new research, Mobile Payment Authentication: Biometrics, Regulation & Forecasts 2019-2024, however notes that the majority of smartphone facial recognition will be software-based, with over 1.3 billion devices having that capability by 2024.