policing Archives

Clearview AI used by US police for almost 1M searches

Facial recognition firm Clearview AI has revealed that it has run almost a million searches for US police.

Facial recognition technology is a controversial topic, and for good reason. Clearview AI's technology allows law enforcement to upload a photo of a suspect's face and find matches in a database of billions of images it has collected.

Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That disclosed in an interview with the BBC that the firm has scraped 30 billion images from platforms such...

28 March 2023 | Applications

Italy’s facial recognition ban exempts law enforcement

Italy has banned the use of facial recognition, except for law enforcement purposes.

On Monday, the country’s Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) issued official stays to two municipalities – the southern Italian city of Lecce and the Tuscan city of Arezzo – over their experiments with biometrics technologies.

The agency banned facial recognition systems using biometric data until a specific law governing its use is...

15 November 2022 | Applications

Deepfakes are now being used to help solve crimes

A deepfake video created by Dutch police could help to change the often negative perception of the technology.

Deepfakes use generative neural network architectures – such as autoencoders or generative adversarial networks (GANs) – to manipulate or generate visual and audio content.

The technology is already being used for malicious purposes including generating sexual content of individuals without their consent, fraud, and the creation of deceptive content aimed at...

25 May 2022 | Deep & Reinforcement Learning

AI in the justice system threatens human rights and civil liberties

The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee has determined the proliferation of AI in the justice system is a threat to human rights and civil liberties.

A report published by the committee today highlights the rapid pace of AI developments that are largely happening out of the public eye. Alarmingly, there seems to be a focus on rushing the technology into production with little concern about its potential negative impact.

Baroness Hamwee, Chair of the Justice...

30 March 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

Reducing crime with better visualisation of data

Effective policing relies on good data. The prevention and reduction of crime, particularly serious and organised crime, depends on law enforcement agencies being able to gain swift insights from the huge and increasing amount of information at their disposal.

The problem, given the sheer volume and variety of that data, is where to look first. So much of the data available to law enforcement data analysts and senior staff is unstructured. In other words, it doesn’t line up in...

16 March 2022 | Enterprise

Clearview AI is close to obtaining a patent despite regulatory crackdown

Clearview AI is reportedly just a bank transfer away from receiving a US patent for its controversial facial recognition technology.

Politico reports that Clearview AI has been sent a “notice of allowance” by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The notice means that it will be granted the patent once it pays the administration fees.

Clearview AI offers one of the most powerful facial recognition systems in the world. In the wake of the US Capitol raid, Clearview AI...

6 December 2021 | Artificial Intelligence

Reintroduction of facial recognition legislation receives mixed responses

The reintroduction of the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act in the 117th Congress has received mixed responses.

An initial version of the legislation was introduced in 2020 but was reintroduced June 15 2021 by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.)

“We do not have to forgo privacy and justice for safety,” said Senator Markey. “This legislation is about rooting out systemic racism and stopping invasive technologies from becoming irreversibly embedded...

17 June 2021 | Ethics & Society

Amazon will continue to ban police from using its facial recognition AI

Amazon will extend a ban it enacted last year on the use of its facial recognition for law enforcement purposes.

The web giant’s Rekognition service is one of the most powerful facial recognition tools available. Last year, Amazon signed a one-year moratorium that banned its use by police departments following a string of cases where facial recognition services – from various providers – were found to be inaccurate and/or misused by law enforcement.

Amazon has now...

24 May 2021 | Amazon

CDEI launches a ‘roadmap’ for tackling algorithmic bias

A review from the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) has led to the creation of a “roadmap” for tackling algorithmic bias.

The analysis was commissioned by the UK government in October 2018 and will receive a formal response.

Algorithms bring substantial benefits to businesses and individuals able to use them effectively. However, increasing evidence suggests biases are – often unconsciously – making their way into algorithms and creating an uneven...

27 November 2020 | Ethics & Society

The ACLU uncovers the first known wrongful arrest due to AI error

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has forced the police to acknowledge a wrongful arrest due to an erroneous algorithm.

While it’s been suspected that documented racial bias with facial recognition algorithms has led to false arrests, it’s been difficult to prove.

On Wednesday, the ACLU lodged a complaint against the Detroit police after black male Robert Williams was arrested on his front lawn “as his wife Melissa looked on and as his daughters wept from...