Clearview seeks refund for failed bulk purchase of SSNs, facial photos

Clearview AI is in the midst of a court battle to recover money it paid to a data broker for a collection of arrest records from all 50 U.S. states.

Documents shared by 404 Media show that the company has filed a petition for a court order in a bit to recover the $918,000 it paid to Investigative Consultant, Inc. (ICI) President Donald Berlin in July, 2019. In return, Clearview was expecting 690 million arrest records.

The records Clearview attempted to purchase included social security numbers, phone numbers, dates of birth, email addresses, home addresses and 390 million photos to add to its facial recognition database, documents filed in court state. Clearview’s database is now up to 60 billion images scraped from the public internet, meaning the SSNs and other details would likely expand the amount of personal information it could share on suspects and members of the public.

But the records were never delivered, and each side filed claims alleging the other breached the contract. Clearview won an arbitration ruling against ICI last year, and now seeks a court order to recover over a million dollars, between its initial payment and subsequent legal costs.

NASA contract revealed

Details of Clearview’s contract with NASA to provide facial recognition services and access to its massive database have also been revealed by 404 Media through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The $16,000 contract specifies that the capability to perform biometric searches against Clearview’s database of more than 50 billion facial images (at the time) will be used by NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

Clearview was chosen because it offers “the only technology platform available in the U.S. that offers its unique combination of web crawling and facial recognition capabilities while being in full compliance with data privacy laws,” NASA states in a procurement document.

The OIG investigates fraud, cybercrime, and threats against the space agency.

The one-year contract was signed in August of last year with Clearview service delivery partner Transource Services Corp.

Clearview recently shuffled the top of its corporate leadership ranks as it seeks more contracts with the U.S. federal government.

Article Topics

biometric database  |  biometrics  |  Clearview AI  |  facial recognition  |  government purchasing