DHS’S CLEARVIEW PROBLEM

Pressure is mounting on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discontinue — or at least clarify — its relationship with Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition company best known for scraping billions of images of people from social media sites.

A coalition of nearly 70 immigrant rights, civil liberties and privacy groups called on the agency to “immediately stop” using the company’s technology in a letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday that was first shared with The Hill.

Clearview AI provides software that can identify and provide information about individuals using images of their faces. The technology is marketed to law enforcement but has also been used by private organizations like the NBA

The company — which has received widespread criticism and cease-and-desist letters from most major social media platforms — does not disclose what entities it provides services to, but federal contracts and reporting shows that DHS, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have all paid for access.

The groups are concerned that immigration authorities could be abusing the facial recognition technology to locate, arrest and even deport individuals using data that they did not consent to share.