Clearview AI targets US federal govt facial recognition contracts with new co-CEOs

Clearview AI is pivoting away from Co-founder and CEO Hoan Ton-That and towards U.S. federal government contracts, expecting a more sympathetic reception to its facial recognition searches of images scraped from social media and other internet sites from an administration rapidly dismantling American’s privacy protections.

Ton-That has resigned from the top position, Forbes reports. Hal Lambert, a board member and early investor, and Co-founder Richard Schwartz became co-CEOs in December, with Ton-That taking the role of Clearview president. While he is leaving that role, Ton-That remains on Clearview’s board.

Lambert has served as a fundraiser for U.S. President Donald Trump. Lambert says he will help Clearview engage with the Trump administration. “There’s some opportunities there. I’m going to be helping with that effort,” Lambert told Forbes.

The Trump administration has claimed public safety and departing immigrants as priorities, and Lambert says Clearview is currently in discussions with the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

The company struggled to gain traction with U.S. federal agencies over the past four years, while it has been ruled illegal or explicitly blocked from one country after another, but has signed facial recognition contracts with many local law enforcement agencies and police departments.

Clearview is up to $16 million in annual recurring revenue but is not yet profitable. It appeared at number 1820 on the Inc. 5000 as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies. “I’m leaving on a high note, with Clearview AI in its strongest position ever. In 2024, we achieved the greatest growth and highest revenues since our founding,” Ton-That said in an announcement of Lambert and Schwartz’ as co-CEOs.

Lambert says the company plans to triple its revenue this year.

“The last four years, it’s been very difficult on the federal side,” Lambert says. “We’ve had lawsuits and all the stuff that’s going on that’s really designed to hamper things and slow things down. So I think a lot of that is behind us.”

The extent to which Clearview’s settlement in biometric data privacy litigation is behind it is still up for debate, with some stakeholders fighting a deal that would see plaintiffs take a 23 percent stake in the company. Lambert’s Point Bridge Capital has also filed a lawsuit against Charles Johnson, who also claimed to be a Clearview co-founder, alleging fraud and extortion. Johnson dropped his own suit against Clearview, he says at the behest of DHS, and suggested a connection between Clearview and Chinese intelligence.

Forbes reports that Clearview considered but opted against securing debt financing last year, and now plans an equity fundraising round. The company’s last was in 2021, when it secured a $30 million series B at a valuation of $130 million.

Clearview is up to 60 billion facial images scraped from the internet, according to the report, and the company’s innovation is largely in its ability to quickly search and process them, as Head of Machine Learning and Principal Engineer Terence Liu explained to Biometric Update in an interview in 2023.

Article Topics

appointments  |  biometrics  |  Clearview AI  |  facial recognition  |  law enforcement  |  police  |  privacy  |  United States