Speed Read

Clearview AI's Facial Recognition Tool Coming to Apps, Schools (Yahoo! News, May 24, 2022)
Clearview AI is expanding sales of its facial recognition software to companies from mainly serving the police, it told Reuters, inviting scrutiny on how the startup capitalizes on billions of photos it scrapes from social media profiles. Sales could be significant for Clearview, a presenter on Wednesday at the Montgomery Summit investor conference in California. It fuels an emerging debate over the ethics of leveraging disputed data to design artificial intelligence systems such as facial recognition. Clearview's usage of publicly available photos to train its tool draws it high marks for accuracy. The United Kingdom and Italy fined Clearview for breaking privacy laws by collecting online images without consent, and the company this month settled with U.S. rights activists over similar allegations. Clearview primarily helps police identify people through social media images, but that business is under threat due to regulatory investigations.
 

Parsons to Acquire Biometric, Counter-Unmanned Tech Company (Washington Technology, May 24, 2022)

Parsons Corp. has agreed to acquire Xator Corp., an integrator of biometric and counter-unmanned aircraft technology solutions for national security and critical infrastructure customers. Centreville, Virginia-headquartered Parsons is valuing the transaction at approximately $400 million, of which $57 million represents a post-close tax benefit and puts the cash portion at $343 million. Parsons said Monday it expects to close the acquisition by the end of June, or the completion of its second quarter. Xator was founded in 2005 and today is a developer of electronic and technical security systems, operations centers, force protection systems, cybersecurity, biometrics and cUAS technologies. The State Department represents one new customer of Xator that Parsons adds through this acquisition. Xator's customer base also covers the special operations, intelligence, federal civilian and global critical infrastructure communities.


 

Human Rights Groups Call on AWS to Stop Hosting Massive DHS Biometric Surveillance System (Data Center Dynamics, May 24, 2022)

More than 40 human rights groups have called on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to drop a contract with the US Department of Homeland Security. AWS is set to host the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) biometric database, a vast collection of fingerprints, iris scans, facial images, and other personal information on more than 270 million people, including children. HART is primarily pitched at tracking legal and illegal immigrants in the US, but will also hold information on US citizens. Aggregating data from federal agencies, local and state police, and foreign governments, it will include data on people's relationships, religions, and travel patterns. Under development since 2016, it is expected to initially hold 6.7 million iris scans and 1.1 billion face images. According to public procurement documents, HART plans to hold data for at least 75 years. Given the concerns such a database raises, and the Department of Homeland Security's well-documented history of human rights abuses, more than 41 groups came together to protest AWS' involvement.


 

UK Orders Facial Recognition Firm Clearview AI to Delete Images Belonging to UK Residents (Euro News, May 24, 2022)

The US facial recognition company Clearview AI has been fined £7.5 million (€8.75 million) by the UK’s data protection watchdog over a string of breaches of local privacy laws. Clearview AI has also been given an enforcement notice to stop obtaining and using personal data of UK residents that are publicly available on the internet and to delete the data from their systems. The US software company brands itself as "the world's largest facial network" holding billions of face photographs from the internet - many scraped from social media sites like Facebook. The company then uses an AI-based identity-matching service which sells them to entities, such as law enforcement, without asking the individual’s permission. Clearview AI also sold its data to private companies but recently agreed to stop doing so in the United States following a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).


 

From Helping India Through COVID to Integrating Services Across Europe: How Governments Are Using Digital ID (Global Government Forum, May 24, 2022)

Dr. Saurabh Garg, the chief executive of India’s Unique Identification Authority, joined a panel of public servants to share information on how digital ID was introduced in a country of 1.3 billion people. Speaking at Global Government Forum’s Digital ID from a standing start webinar, Garg highlighted that the Indian government launched the programme to create what is now the digital ID – known as Foundation – in 2010, when a decision was taken to replace the numerous different ID cards – covering services like driving licence, tax registration or food subsidies – with a single system.“It was felt there was a need to have a kind of an all-purpose portable ID which is real time authenticable for all residents,” he said. In the subsequent 10 years, Garg revealed, the government has achieved 100% coverage of the adult population with the digital ID, which allocates a 12-digit random number to every citizen.


 

Can Digital Identity Help With the World Refugee Crisis? (Security Boulevard, May 24, 2022)

What do you do when you suddenly have to abandon your country? What do you take with you — and what do you leave behind? These are questions faced by millions of refugees worldwide, who are forced to flee their countries because of persecution, war, or violence. And while some are able to grab identity documents on their way out the door, others are left with no proof that they are who they say they are. So what do you do if one of the things you leave behind is your legal identity?  That’s the situation facing at least some of the approximately 6 million people who have fled the borders of Ukraine in the nearly three months since Russia escalated the war on February 20. They’re joined by an additional 6.5 million people who are displaced inside the country, making for a total of more than 12 million who have been forced to leave their homes thus far. According to Pew Research, that number places the Ukrainian refugee crisis among the worst in modern history.




Events

Identity Week America, October 4 - 5, 2022 (Terrapinn, May 24, 2022)
IDENTITY WEEK is the most important identity event in the USA. IDENTITY WEEK is a conference and exhibition bringing together the brightest minds in the identity sector to promote innovation, new thinking, and more effective identity solutions. Key areas of focus include secure physical credentials, digital identity, and advanced authentication technologies, such as biometrics.

 

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