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Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI just had its entire client list stolen

The breach of its entire client list may shed some embarrassment on organizations that are clients of the company that wish to remain unknown.

Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI just had its entire client list stolen

[Photo: Miłosz Klinowski/Unsplash]

BY Michael Grothaus1 minute read

Clearview AI, the New York City-based facial recognition company, has had its entire client base list stolen by hackers, reports The Daily Beast. The list contains all the names of the customers of the controversial AI company and is sure to be the biggest scandal yet the company has faced since its founding in 2017.

In recent months, Clearview AI has been attacked from all sides by lawmakers, tech giants, and privacy advocates for its business practices, which include scraping public images of people from sites like LinkedIn, Venmo, Facebook, and YouTube. Clearview AI’s systems then allow clients to search for people in its database using these scraped images.

While several law enforcement agencies are known to use Clearview AI’s services, the breach of its entire client list may cause some embarrassment for organizations using its services who wish to remain unknown. As of now, however, it looks like Clearview AI’s client list hasn’t been made public—at least not yet.

Clearview AI made the disclosure of the breach in an email to clients, saying an intruder “gained unauthorized access” to the client list. When the Daily Beast contacted the company about the breach, Tor Ekeland, the company’s attorney said in a statement, “Security is Clearview’s top priority. Unfortunately, data breaches are part of life in the 21st century. Our servers were never accessed. We patched the flaw, and continue to work to strengthen our security.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Grothaus is a novelist and author. He has written for Fast Company since 2013, where he's interviewed some of the tech industry’s most prominent leaders and writes about everything from Apple and artificial intelligence to the effects of technology on individuals and society. Michael’s current tech-focused areas of interest include AI, quantum computing, and the ways tech can improve the quality of life for the elderly and individuals with disabilities More


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