What if a stranger could snap your picture on the sidewalk then use an app to quickly discover your name, address and other details? Meet Clearview AI
It's been building now for decades, but when the change finally comes, it will seem so swift and all encompassing that it will be nearly unrecognizable by most people. I am talking of course about the day when we become fully integrated into a cyborg world dominated by
AI,
VR, and all the other alphabet designations that are heralding the coming switch. And this is not something that will be relegated to the time of Jacob's trouble, this is something we will experience
now before the
Pretribulation Rapture of the Church.
"Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you." Habakkuk 1:5 (KJB)
We have been groomed as a population though books, movies and music to accept a world that we not only share with machines but one in which we begin to merge with the machines. The smart phone debuted in 2007, and in just 13 short years it has grown to be an appendage to our physical bodies. That is the very definition of what a cyborg is. Over the next 2-5 years, if the Lord tarries, we will see things and be immersed in things that were only thought possible in science fiction novels.
The Matrix,
Minority Report, and all those other movies will become everyday reality.
Clearview AI app lets strangers find your name and info with snap of a photo
FROM C|NET: A startup called
Clearview AI has made that possible, and its app is currently being used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the US, including the FBI, says a Saturday report in
The New York Times.
The app, says the Times, works by comparing a photo to a database of more than 3 billion pictures that Clearview says it's scraped off Facebook, Venmo, YouTube and other sites. It then serves up matches, along with links to the sites where those database photos originally appeared. A name might easily be unearthed, and from there other info could be dug up online.
The size of the Clearview database dwarfs others in use by law enforcement. The FBI's own database, which taps passport and driver's license photos, is one of the largest, with over 641 million images of US citizens. The Clearview app isn't currently available to the public, but the Times says police officers and Clearview investors think it will be in the future.
Law enforcement officers say they've used the app to solve crimes from shoplifting to child sexual exploitation to murder. But privacy advocates warn that the app could return false matches to police and that it could also be used by stalkers and others. They've also warned that
facial recognition technologies in general could be used to conduct mass surveillance.
On Wednesday, the
House Oversight Committee held its third hearing on facial recognition, as lawmakers look to address the tech's use in public spaces by both private companies and government agencies. "We're going to have to really grapple with what are the parameters of protecting privacy and controlling the use of this technology," Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia, said at the hearing.
In November, two senators introduced a
bipartisan bill that would limit how agencies like the FBI and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement could use the tech. "Facial recognition technology can be a powerful tool for law enforcement officials," one of the senators, Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, said in a statement at the time. "But its very power also makes it ripe for abuse."
Clearview AI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI didn't immediately have a comment.
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