Startup Clearview AI has built a facial recognition system that claims to be able to ID people in real-time, matching them with billions of images pulled from databases and scraped from social media. Earlier this year, a list containing the names of private companies using or possibly interested in using the technology leaked out as regulators began to scrutinize the outfit, and people filed lawsuits.
According to Buzzfeed News, Clearview AI said in a filing that “Clearview is cancelling the accounts of every customer who was not either associated with law enforcement or some other federal, state, or local government department, office, or agency,” and cancelling the accounts of all entities in Illinois. It’s being sued for allegedly breaking a state law concerning the use of biometric information by scraping images from the plaintiff’s social media accounts to train its algorithm.