Clearview AI founder Hoan Ton-That on weathering a global regulatory storm, and the road ahead

MLex Market Insight

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4.9 • 9 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

Even as it surpasses a database of 40 billion faces to train its algorithms, the founder and chief executive of Clearview AI told MLex in an exclusive interview that it isn't going back to doing business in Europe, the UK, Canada or Australia, where the controversial facial-recognition startup has faced regulatory opposition. In the US, however, Clearview has put many of its most thorny legal problems behind it, according to Hoan Ton-That.

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0:00.0	Hello there. Clearview AI is the facial recognition startup behind a global regulatory storm.
0:17.4	The premise is very simple. Clearview's vast database of images, scraped from the internet,
0:22.8	can be used by law enforcement agencies to identify suspects in serious crimes. Many police
0:29.4	swear by it, claiming that the technology has helped them to solve the toughest and most
0:34.5	disturbing crimes. But privacy watchdogs, in particular those outside the US,
0:39.8	say that Clearview's technology is deeply problematic.
0:43.5	Among the concerns is that the US-based company
0:46.2	fails to obtain consent for the use of images it stores.
0:51.1	The regulatory backlash may be justified, even predictable, yet the public pressure for
0:56.2	police to solve crimes remains as high as ever, prompting some soul-searching about whether
1:01.7	facial recognition technology or FRT will at some stage have to play a role in law enforcement.
1:08.7	Welcome to a special edition of the MLEX podcast. I'm James Panicki,
1:12.6	an MLEX senior editor, and today an exclusive interview with a person behind Clearview, founder
1:19.1	and executive officer Juan Tom Thatt. In the course of this 30-minute conversation,
1:24.4	we'll cover Clearview's highs and lows, and more importantly, the road
1:28.4	ahead for the tech company. Just a quick glossary for non-US listeners before we start,
1:34.3	the acronym NIST stands for National Institute of Standards and Technology. To speak with Juan,
1:40.9	Tom Thatt, here's MLEX's Global Digital Risk Correspondent, Mike Swift.
1:45.1	Juan, thanks so much for spending some time with us today. I really appreciate it. You guys
1:50.1	have really shaken up the privacy world at Clearview AI. And, you know, I wanted to just start
1:56.0	your seven years into your company and your business has faced a lot of legal challenges
2:03.2	in the United States and around the world.
	...

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