Google Patent Points To Potential Return Of Facial Recognition In Foldable Pixel
(Mobile ID World, May 27, 2021)
A new patent filed by tech giant Google suggests that an upcoming foldable Pixel device will see the debut of a disappearing under-display camera. Google Patent Points to Potential Return of Facial Recognition in Foldable Pixel According to a recent report courtesy of GSMArena, Google filed a 23-page patent that shows the under-screen camera positioned opposite a small secondary screen with some sort of mirror or prism separating the two that swings open to reveal the camera when the user needs it. The 2-3mm window in the display appears seamless when closed, and also contains another sensor which could be either a proximity, ambient, or IR sensor.
Clearview AI — The Facial Recognition Company Embraced By U.S. Law Enforcement — Just Got Hit With A Barrage Of Privacy Complaints In Europe
(Forbes, May 27, 2021)
Clearview AI, the American purveyor of facial recognition tech reportedly used by thousands of government and law enforcement agencies throughout the world, is facing an onslaught of legal complaints across Europe Thursday for allegedly breaching the bloc’s strict data protection laws.
Legality Of Collecting Faces Online Challenged
(BBC, May 27, 2021)
Privacy International and others argue its methods of collecting photos and selling them to private firms and the police "go beyond what we could ever expect as online users". Clearview has said is has no contracts with any EU-based customers. It said it had complied with requests to remove images of EU citizens. Under GDPR rules, European citizens can ask the company if their faces are in its database and request that their biometric data is no longer included in searches.
EU Privacy Groups Set Sights On Facial Recognition Firm
(Tech Xplore, May 27, 2021)
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. Clearview's use of images—including those from people's social media accounts—to offer biometrics services to private companies and law enforcement "goes far beyond what we could ever expect as online users", Ioannis Kouvakas, legal officer at Privacy International, said in a statement.
The Rise Of AI Surveillance
(Politico, May 27, 2021)
This article is part of "The age of surveillance," a special report on artificial intelligence. Welcome to the dark side of artificial intelligence. As a technology, AI has been touted as a silver bullet for many of society’s ills. It has the potential to help doctors spot cancers, assist in the design of new vaccines, help predict the weather, provide football teams with insights on their strategies and automate boring tasks like driving or administrative work. And of course, it can be used for surveillance. There’s a case to be made that there’s no such thing as AI without surveillance. AI applications rely on mountains of data to train algorithms to recognize patterns and make decisions. Much of it is harvested from consumers without them realizing it. Internet companies track our clicks to divine our preferences for products, news articles or ads. The facial recognition company Clearview AI scrapes images off sites like Facebook and YouTube to train its model. Facebook recently announced it will begin to train AI models with public videos users have uploaded on the platform.
Minn. Police Use Of Facial Recognition Leads To Concerns
(Gov Tech, May 27, 2021)
At least 42 law enforcement agencies in Minnesota, including the Renville County Sheriff's Office, reportedly used Clearview AI facial recognition software, according to a Buzzfeed investigation. Clearview AI is a web-based platform that allows users to submit pictures for possible matches in a database of more than 3 billion images pulled from open source websites, including news sites and social media, according to the company's web page. The company also boasted of a 100% accuracy rate at one point, according to a document obtained by a public records request from Buzzfeed.
New York City’s New Biometric Privacy Law Goes Into Effect July 9, 2021
(JD Supra, May 27, 2021)
New York City’s new biometric privacy ordinance creates a private right of action for individuals that could subject local businesses to potentially millions of dollars in liability. Employers who do business in New York City should carefully review this new ordinance as well as any technology they be using that has the potential to collect biometric information. As Seyfarth previously blogged, on January 1, 2021, New York City passed a new biometric privacy ordinance. The ordinance, found here, goes into effect on July 9, 2021.
