facial recognition software
Selfie scraping Clearview AI hit with another €20M ban order in Europe
Clearview AI has been hit with another sanction for breaching European privacy rules. The Athens-based Hellenic data protection authority has fined the controversial facial recognition firm €20 million and banned…
The U.K.’s data protection watchdog has confirmed a penalty for the controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI — announcing a fine of just over £7.5 million today for a string…
Clearview AI banned from selling its facial recognition software to most US companies
A company that gained notoriety for selling access to billions of facial photos, many culled from social media without the knowledge of the individuals depicted, faces major new restrictions to…
The IRS won’t make you verify your identity with facial recognition after all
The IRS announced plans Monday to back away from a third-party facial recognition system that collects biometric data from U.S. taxpayers who want to log in to the agency’s online…
What Kai-Fu Lee-backed AInnovation tells us about China’s smart manufacturing
The enthusiasm to find paying customers for artificial intelligence continues in China. AInnovation, a Chinese computer vision and machine learning startup backed by Kai-Fu Lee’s Sinovation Ventures and SoftBank, is…
Controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI, which has amassed a database of some 10 billion images by scraping selfies off the Internet so it can sell an identity-matching service to…
SenseTime, one of China’s most valuable AI solution providers, is putting its $767 million public listing on hold, the company said Monday. The announcement came three weeks after the Hong…
One of China’s biggest AI solution providers is a step closer to its initial public offering. SenseTime has received regulatory approval to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, according…
Clearview AI told it broke Australia’s privacy law, ordered to delete data
After Canada, now Australia has found that controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI, broke national privacy laws when it covertly collected citizens’ facial biometrics and incorporated them into its AI-powered…
Facebook says it will delete facial recognition data on more than a billion users
Just days after rebranding itself, Facebook announced plans to delete a trove of the most worrisome data that the world’s biggest social network collected on more than a billion individuals.…
Lawmakers ask Amazon what it plans to do with palm print biometric data
A group of senators sent new Amazon CEO Andy Jassy a letter Friday pressing the company for more information about how it scans and stores customer palm prints for use…
Maine’s facial recognition law shows bipartisan support for protecting privacy
The ACLU urges all Americans to ask their members of Congress to join the movement to halt facial recognition technology and support federal legislation limiting it.
A new biometrics privacy ordinance has taken effect across New York City, putting new limits on what businesses can do with the biometric data they collect on their customers. From…
Controversial facial recognition startup Clearview AI violated Canadian privacy laws when it collected photos of Canadians without their knowledge or permission, the country’s top privacy watchdog has ruled. The New…
Responsibly managing machine learning processes is no longer just a desirable component of progress but a necessary one.
AI researchers condemn predictive crime software, citing racial bias and flawed methods
A collective of more than 2,000 researchers, academics and experts in artificial intelligence are speaking out against soon-to-be-published research that claims to use neural networks to “predict criminality.” At the…
In a surprise blog post, Amazon said it will put the brakes on providing its facial recognition technology to police for one year, but refuses to say if the move…
Daily Crunch: FDA clears procedure for N95 mask decontamination
The FDA approves a new procedure that could allow healthcare workers to reuse N95 respirator masks, Microsoft divests from a facial recognition startup and Saudi spies have been taking advantage…
Divesting from one facial recognition startup, Microsoft ends outside investments in the tech
Microsoft is pulling out of an investment in an Israeli facial recognition technology developer as part of a broader policy shift to halt any minority investments in facial recognition startups,…
Latin America roundup: Neobanks raise $205M+; Softbank backs VTEX
Argentina’s Ualá became the most recent Latin American fintech to receive a growth-stage funding ($150 million) from Asian investors, Tencent and Softbank. This marks Tencent’s second round of investment in Ualá,…
Why AI needs more social workers, with Columbia University’s Desmond Patton
Sometimes it does seem the entire tech industry could use someone to talk to, like a good therapist or social worker. That might sound like an insult, but I mean…
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using facial recognition software to trawl through millions of driver’s license photos provided by 21 states to search and find suspects. News broke over…
China’s Alipay adds sought-after beauty filters to face-scan payments
In China, striving for accuracy in a piece of facial recognition software isn’t enough. As Alibaba’s e-wallet affiliate Alipay has recently demonstrated, the way software presents a user’s look is…
Unregulated facial recognition technology presents unique risks for the LGBTQ+ community
It seems consumers today are granted ever-dwindling opportunities to consider the safety and civil liberties implications of a new technology before it becomes widely adopted. Facial recognition technology is no…
Amazon defeated shareholder’s vote on facial recognition by a wide margin
Efforts by shareholders to instruct Amazon to stop selling its facial recognition technology to government customers failed by a wide margin, according to a new corporate filing with regulators. About…
Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition sale ban to governments
Amazon shareholders have rejected two proposals that would have requested the company not to sell its facial recognition technology to government customers. The breakdown of the votes is not immediately…
3D-printed heads let hackers – and cops – unlock your phone
There’s a lot you can make with a 3D printer: prosthetics, corneas, firearms — even an Olympic-standard luge. You can even 3D-print a life-size replica of a human head — and not…
Lawmakers say Amazon’s facial recognition software may be racially biased and harm free expression
Amazon has “failed to provide sufficient answers” about its controversial facial recognition software, Rekognition — and lawmakers won’t take the company’s usual silent treatment for an answer. The letter, signed…
Five years and one pivot later, Trueface emerges with a promise for better facial recognition tech
Shaun Moore and Nezare Chafni didn’t initially intend to develop a new standalone facial recognition technology when they first got started developing the technology that would become their new company,…
Featured Article
Unbiased algorithms can still be problematic
Creating unbiased, accurate algorithms isn’t impossible — it’s just time consuming. “It actually is mathematically possible,” facial recognition startup Kairos CEO Brian Brackeen told me on a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. Algorithms are sets of rules that computers follow in order to solve problems and make decisions about a particular course of action. Whether…
