On April 6th, Buzzfeed News published its findings on an investigation that probed how extensively government agencies had used the controversial facial recognition software, Clearview AI, in their daily operations. However, many of the agencies listed in the report state that they do not use Clearview AI.
Buzzfeed News has created a searchable table that allows users to search through the 1,803 agencies that were found to have used Clearview AI to see whether an agency used the software, how many times they used the software, and what their official comment on their use of the software is. The full article, detailing more extensively the ways that government agencies were using Clearview AI, and what Clearview AI is, can be found here.
The investigation revealed that over 7,000 employees of 1,803 publicly-funded state and federal agencies used Clearview AI at some point between 2018 and February 2020. In all, nearly 340,000 searches were run in the two-year period.
Usage across agencies varied as widely as the types of agencies that used Clearview AI. According to comments solicited from agencies found to have used Clearview AI, usage ranged from 50 searches to test the software out, to regular use in police investigations. Many agency heads reported the utilization of Clearview AI was done without their knowledge.
Attorneys may want to search the database to understand how local law enforcement agencies have used the software to help determine if the controversial software was used in their cases.