I Got My File From Clearview AI, and It Freaked Me Out

Found on OneZero on Friday, 27 March 2020
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The Times, not usually an institution prone to hyperbole, wrote that Clearview could “end privacy as we know it.” According to the exposé, the company scrapes public images from the internet. These can come from news articles, public Facebook posts, social media profiles, or multiple other sources. Clearview has apparently slurped up more than 3 billion of these images.

Clearview packages this database into an easy-to-query service (originally called Smartcheckr) and sells it to government agencies, police departments, and a handful of private companies.

Expect your request to take up to two months to process. Be persistent in following up. And remember that once you receive your data, you have the option to demand that Clearview delete it or amend it if you’d like them to do so.

That's exactly why you have to be careful with all the data you put online. At first it might seem unimportant, and nobody but your friends should be interested in your snapshots, but then some company comes in and digs through all that to prepare it for easy stalking.