ACLU accuses Clearview AI of privacy “nightmare scenario” | Hacker News Reader

ACLU accuses Clearview AI of privacy “nightmare scenario”

nytimes.com

116 pointsdwighttk25 comments

Of course, you can only opt-out if you're a citizen of California, Illinois, the EU, UK, or Switzerland. Absurd.

They don't even honor that. My info and deletion requests from months ago were ignored.

Small claims court litigation (if the courts ever reopen and clear the backlog of bankruptcies) will get some attention.

There's no record of the claim ever being submitted because they don't send any confirmation. They just ignore it.

If you're going to submit these forms, take screenshots as evidence.

Are you suggesting to sue them on the basis of the GDPR? As far as I know that regulation doesn’t have give data subjects the rights to sue, and even then, proving monetary damages will be difficult.

Was it a CCPA request or GDPR?

Ditto.

I asked for info under GDPR and sent them a heavily redacted copy of my ID (redacted: surname, half my ID, address) and actually got an answer 3 weeks later that they have nothing on me. Citing their email:

"Hello, You are receiving this email as a response to your request for data access. After running the photo provided through our algorithm, no matches were found."

Next step: Opt-out. Step after that: Rinse, repeat.

I suggest you make your voice heard with your legislative representatives.

Also, to be pedantic, California and Illinois are states, not nations, so the more accurate term is probably resident for those jurisdictions.

Actually, to be pedantic, citizens of the United States are indeed citizens of the state in which they reside, according to the 14th Amendment:

> All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

That's... a good point. Still, it sounds weird to say that you're a citizen of Oklahoma or whatever. Resident is what most people would call it.

In our federal system though, its crucial to make sure people have the right to vote in the states they live. It was even more crucial in the context if the era that the 14th amendment was written in, where states as independent nations willingly participating in the Union with the ability to opt out for whatever reason (slavery) was just put to the test and resolved. At that time, state identity was so strong that people like General Lee saw themselves as Virginians first, Americans second, which led him to fight for the confederacy. Its still an incredibly important distinction and concept today, just having been resolved so thoroughly by now it seems almost weird to think the way the people that wrote that amendment thought. We say the United states is now, but there was a time when we said these united states are instead.

There is actually an incredibly important distinction here that many politicians actually care a lot about; there are many people who are residents with full rights (and responsibilities) who are not citizens; it is important to be aware of these people when referring to the population as a whole. The term "citizen" does not include these people. The term constituents is commonly used, at least in the political sphere; it covers the broad range of people with legal rights within a jurisdiction.

As a non-citizen resident, I definitely understand the distinction, though I am also not a member of any constituency in the U.S. so it would be pretty strange to call me a constituent.

I also see the point that it is in fact more accurate to use the term "resident," even if not for the reasons that the GP posted, as the rights under the CCPA are afforded to all residents of California.

Does not gdpr laws apply to Norway anymore?

GDPR does apply to Norway, and Norway has a fairly well developed privacy agency. However, according to investigations by Financial Times (the newspaper), none of the European countries have enough people hired to either deal with alleged privacy breaches, or people equipped to actually properly investigate these claims.

The Financial Times tends to have great coverage on data privacy. It is impressive on what they uncover, even with technicalities. Also, the coverage is not fleeting or apocalyptic at all. Somehow, I have never been disappointed with them covering even tech in general. But, their data privacy coverage is generally great.

Ny point is that clearview does not allow Norwegians to opt out

...by sending them a clear photo of your face and a government-issued ID. Fuck that.

It is worth becoming an EU citizen just to be able to opt out. I am not exaggerating at all.

> The facial recognition start-up violated the privacy of Illinois residents by collecting their images without their consent, the civil liberties group says in a new lawsuit.

>In a suit filed in Illinois, the A.C.L.U. said that Clearview violated a state law that forbids companies from using a resident’s fingerprints or face scans without consent.

>Under the law, residents have the right to sue companies for up to $5,000 per privacy violation.

...

Up to $5k doesn’t seem adequate in this case.

Wouldn't it be $5k * number of images scraped? Illinois has 12.7 million residents. If only 6 million images were scraped, that would be $30B.

Those darn COPA violations...

Yes indeed. Sorry I wasn’t clear, I meant from an individual’s perspective. $5K isn’t much, but yes the total sum would give some satisfaction.

That's generally how class action law suits play out.

Well, their "HQ" is a 1-person WeWork office near Penn Station, I kinda doubt they have the money to pay out any giant class action settlements.

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