Reuters: Ukraine uses Clearview AI during the war – IT Pro – News

On Saturday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense began deploying Clearview AI during the war with Russia. The CEO of Clearview told Reuters about it. This technique can be used to identify Russian soldiers and identify bodies.

Ukraine will get free access to Clearview AI services, which, for example, allow authorities to screen people at checkpoints. This is what the company says Reuters news agency† Clearview says it has “2 billion images” of faces in its database. They will come from the Russian social center VKontakte.

The database can be used to identify the bodies of Russian soldiers or to identify Russian spies. According to the company, facial recognition technology could also be used to combat social media posts that include misinformation about the war and in refugee work, for example to reunite separated families.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine did not respond to questions from Reuters about the deployment of Clearview AI. Tweakers also have pending questions with the ministry. Ukraine has previously indicated that it is considering offers from “American artificial intelligence companies.” Clearview notes that it has not offered its services to Russia.

Albert Fox Kahn, director of the US Surveillance Technology Monitoring Project, told Reuters that the use of AI Clearview could cause identification errors. The company says Clearview “should never be used as the sole means of identification and that Ukrainian users receive training on how to properly use the software.”

Clearview AI has been discredited many times in the past. The company uses scraping tools to collect images from public sources such as social media for a facial recognition database, without the permission of the people in the images. The company says this is allowed, as it is about public data. Clearview is used, for example, by police authorities.

Several privacy regulators have previously fined Clearview AI for handling data without permission. Italian privacy regulator GPDP gave the company last week A fine of 20 million euros, because Clearview “illegally collects biometric data from Italian citizens.” UK privacy regulator ICO intends to do the same† France And the Australia It previously instructed Clearview to remove all data from its citizens.