A state lawmaker wants to stop cops from using facial recognition technology, following a Post report.
Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) introduced the bill Monday calling for “action to regulate this increasingly pervasive and dangerously powerful technology, before it’s too late” — days after The Post reported the NYPD’s unofficial connection to controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI.
“As the New York Post reported last week, rogue New York City law enforcement officials utilized the controversial Clearview AI app, which relies on billions of images taken from Facebook and YouTube,” Hoylman told the paper.
Clearview has come under fire from civil liberties groups and some lawmakers over the past week after the New York Times reported the breadth of the company’s operation, scraping nearly 3 billion photos from social media giants — as well as other sites, including Venmo.
Facebook and Twitter have been in contact with Clearview for allegedly violating their terms of service by copying millions of photos from the social media platforms into its own databases, according to Clearview AI outside counsel Tor Ekeland.
Twitter has slapped the company with a cease-and-desist order, but Ekeland said Tuesday he “wouldn’t describe what Facebook sent as a [cease and desist]… we are in a dialogue with them.”
Ekeland, who was hired last week after the backlash, told The Post Monday evening, Facebook has issued a cease-and-desist and the company would respond “appropriately” to both orders.
“Scraping Facebook information or adding it to a directory are prohibited by our policies, so we are reviewing the claims about this company and will take appropriate action if we find they are violating our rules,” a spokesperson for Facebook said.
The company’s controversial app, now limited to law enforcement officers with a valid email, allows cops to upload a photo of a person and, within minutes, get any hits of the person on social media from its massive database.
The Post reported last week that around three dozen NYPD officers were using the company’s trial version of the app — despite the department’s own facial recognition unit’s decision to not use the app due to security and abuse concerns.
Clearview has also met resistance from law enforcement, with one NYPD source telling the paper previously, “They’re playing with fire. It only takes one cop to put in his ex-girlfriend’s photo in there and see who she’s dating now.”
Across the Hudson, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued a cease-and-desist order to all local police chiefs in the state using the app, sources told The Post. It was unclear, however, if any departments had used the tech. The AG’s ban was first reported by NJ.com.
Hoylman’s proposed ban, however, would pose problems for the NYPD — which has embraced facial recognition, creating a small, dedicated unit to exclusively use the software.
“We will review the language of the bill when it becomes available, but to not use technology like this would be negligent,” a spokeswoman for the NYPD said.
“A facial recognition match is solely a lead — no one has ever been arrested solely on the basis of a computer match, no matter how compelling,” the spokeswoman said.
The department’s Facial Identification Section only uses its own database of arrest photos — not driver’s license or other images from government databases — but came under fire last year for comparing images of suspects to juvenile arrest photos.
It also took heat for using a photo of Woody Harrelson to track down a look-alike thief.
Hoylman also cites these cases as a reason to ban the software from law enforcement statewide.
Only three states in the US — California, New Hampshire and Oregon — have limited law enforcement’s use of facial recognition software.
While the NYPD touts the facial recognition unit’s high-profile successes — including quickly identifying a West Virginia man who sparked terror with a pair of rice cookers in Downtown Manhattan — the lack of a public policy on the software has left the department open to criticism, police sources have told The Post.
Ekeland said the company “is committed to the responsible use of facial recognition technology.
“That’s one of the reasons that Clearview restricts its use to law enforcement and legitimate investigations, because we don’t want to see it abused,” Ekeland said. “We welcome the dialogue and reasonable regulations.”
Ekeland would not say if any NYPD officers still had active memberships.
An NYPD spokeswoman previously said it was not aware of Clearview being used for any casework despite the active trial accounts and that there was “no institutional relationship between” the two.
Officers were believed to be using the app on their personal devices, because they cannot load unapproved software onto department phones.
Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan