Food for thought... Do you own your face? For years even the giant tech firms privacy advocates battle steered clear of crossing the line of developing an app that can be used to instantly identify and profile any person, anywhere just by taking a photo. Google admitted they could do this nearly a decade ago but choose not to for fear the technology would likely be used in criminal and unethical ways.

Unfortunately a startup called Clearview AI has crossed the privacy line after stealing over 3 billion images of people’s faces by scraping social media, education, government, news and employer sites. They assembled the world’s largest facial image database and combined it with personal data available from data brokers to build an AI powered app with the goal of being able to instantly identify and profile anyone, anywhere…

While this tech will help police, it will also help police states and politicians keep dissidents in check. Don’t care because you're a hang ‘em high kind of guy? Are you still going to be OK when a serial rapist or serial killer snaps an image of your daughter or wife and instantly knows her address, contact information, where she works or goes to school, and what she drives? Plus even more?

What if you’re at a political event, a hotel, church, the mall, a bar, gun range or any other place. Do you want someone that doesn’t agree with your life choices to be able to instantly identify you and have your contact, personal, financial and profile information? Besides privacy loss and harassment, blackmail and identity theft are real concerns.


What about foreign governments? Do we want a foreign government or gang to be able to harass or threaten us while we’re traveling?

Senior citizens are already being taken advantage of at an alarming rate. Do we really want criminals to be able to snap a photo of your granny and target her for a con? 



My goal as a privacy advocate isn’t to suggest we all stop using social media. It’s to help shed light on the real issue and risks that arise when data is stored and complied from multiple sources to build a profile or book of life. It’s dangerous to our liberty. The issue has been hidden and blurred behind the curtain of technology. We can stop the long term storage of data and those that aggregate data with regulation. Thoughts?

Blue Moon

This cat's been out of the bag a long time.

This is why we have guns.

I worry more about the national debt levels and the money that I have becoming worthless due to inflation!

Casinos have used facial recognition for years to identify cheats and people who can legally beat their system.

This issue isn’t about the cat being out of the bag, it’s about wicked cat herders illegally rounding up all the cats and training them to kill your dog, rape your loved ones, take away your guns, and any other freedom you care about. Best to just say no to wicked cat herders…

This entire issue arose because Clearview AI, the wicked cat herder, aggregated stolen data that none of us agreed to give them and trained it to do wicked things. LinkedIn went so far as to sue Clearview AI over the issue of the stolen facial images but they unfortunately lost the case because we don’t have proper regulations in place to deal with our new digital society. I’m not a big government guy but in this regard we need regulation to protect our freedom.

We should be able to go to church and fellowship with our friends on social media without having all of our data stored forever. Many of the privacy issues are mitigated if we can limit data storage and even more importantly, limit or stop data aggregation through regulation.


Aggregated data used by this app and many others puts all of our freedoms at risk. Opponents will use aggregated data to know you have guns and what kind. Armed with aggregated data and geofencing, they will be able to see who has guns and where you live in proximity to schools and places of worship. When political winds shift, they will try to pass legislation that will prevent you from bearing the arms of your choice based on your proximity to gun safe zones.

If you’re concerned at all about your second amendment rights, then you should be at war against aggregated data because it is the tech vehicle that will cause the loss of your individual rights and freedoms…


It’s one thing to agree to surveillance when you enter someone’s business, work on a company device or location, or visit a government facility. It’s a giant leap to allow anyone on the street to have the ability to instantly identify you or your loved ones and know everything about you. This capability turns everyone into an instant target and puts all of our freedoms at risk.


Me too but I also know the dangers of allowing anyone on the street to immediately know how much money you have as it makes you and yours an instant target.