Report says Clearview AI tested a web searching tool for police

In short: WIRED reports that Clearview AI built and tested a prototype tool that could quickly collect a person’s online information for investigators.

What happened

WIRED says it found evidence that Clearview AI has been experimenting with an “analyst assistant” called InquiryIQ. Clearview AI is best known for face recognition, which matches a face to possible names using a large photo database.

According to WIRED, InquiryIQ is designed to start with details an investigator already has from a Clearview search. Then it would automatically search across the internet, open web pages, look at images, and compile a profile. That profile could include possible employers, aliases (other names), associates (people connected to the person), addresses, phone numbers, and social media accounts.

WIRED reports that InquiryIQ’s interface suggests adding age, gender, and race could help the system make “smarter decisions” while searching. WIRED also found that one model tested for the tool came from xAI, the company behind the Grok chatbot. Critics have raised concerns about Grok’s past offensive and inaccurate outputs, and experts told WIRED that similar AI systems can sometimes make things up (like a confident but unreliable witness).

Clearview told WIRED that InquiryIQ is a prototype that has not been sold or released. CEO Amos Kyler said no law enforcement user has used it, and that the model options shown were for internal testing.

Why it matters

If tools like this work well, they could speed up investigations by turning days of online searching into minutes. But privacy experts warn that making this kind of “digital rummaging” easy could also make it more common to closely scrutinize people who may not have been investigated otherwise.

Related: Clearview AI

Source: Wired