Professor Ferguson said any police use of face identification should be strictly limited.Hoan Ton-That is an Australian entrepreneur. 'If they were to use it, it needs to operate within a robust human rights-based regulatory framework, which in the current Australian context is notably absent,' she said. Experts call for regulationĪustralia lacks regulations to handle the advent of facial recognition technology, according to Dr Mann. Ms Falk said if sensitive biometric data of Australians had been collected, Clearview AI would have to abide by Australia's privacy act, which would require informed consent. 'Their sensitive personal information - biometric information is sensitive information - has been taken without their knowledge or their consent, and it's been put to use for applications that they were not aware of and they certainly haven't agreed to,' Dr Mann said. 'The general public does understand that things that are public do get into search engines and other places.'īut Monique Mann, from the Australian Privacy Foundation, said people had a right to be concerned if their biometrics were harvested from social media channels. In response to questions about scraping images from social media, Mr Ton-That said: 'There's many things we want to talk about, and, you know, one thing's not Facebook.' 'We are reviewing the claims about this company and will take appropriate action if we find they are violating our rules.' Could your Facebook photos be used by Clearview?Ĭlearview AI has also been criticised by privacy advocates for its practice of scraping facial images from social media, including Facebook and YouTube.Ī spokesperson from Facebook told the ABC the tech giant could take action against Clearview AI over the practice. She added that she would have oversight of the use of such technology, as she has with uses of facial recognition that have already been approved, such as at airports for fast-tracked immigration screening. 'The Australian privacy principles would require them to conduct a privacy impact assessment, that means looking at what are the privacy risks, how would the information be handled and how those risks would be mitigated,' she said. Ms Falk told RN Breakfast any police department would need to have completed a privacy impact assessment if it intended to use Clearview AI's technology. Privacy commissioner Angelene Falk said she was making enquiries to determine whether the sensitive data of Australians had been used by Clearview. Mr Ton-That claims police in Australia are using his technology. 'We really believe that this technology can make the world a lot safer.' 'There's a lot of crimes and cases that are being solved,' Mr Ton-That said. Is Clearview AI being used by police in Australia?Ī report in The New York Times earlier this week uncovered the use of Clearview AI by more than 600 police departments. He worked in app development and as a part-time model before founding Clearview AI four years ago. Mr Ton-That, 31, grew up in Australia and moved to the US at 19 years old. 'It has caught my regulatory attention and I am making inquiries of Clearview AI to ascertain whether or not Australians' data is implicated,' she told RN Breakfast. This statement has drawn the interest of Australian privacy commissioner Angelene Falk, who said she wanted to know whether the data of Australians had been collected. Clearview AI said its technology uses a database of 3 billion images harvested from across the internet.

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