Only the Government Can Save Us From Clearview A.I.

And how to stop the end of anonymity

Devika Daga
OneZero

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Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

This story was written in response to the article “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It” by Kashmir Hill in the New York Times.

If you’re still unsure why privacy is so damn important, my guess is you’re one of these people whom Kara Swisher described last year:

Far too many of the people who have designed the wondrous parts of the internet — thinking up cool new products to make our lives easier, distributing them across the globe, and making fortunes doing so — have never felt unsafe a day in their lives.

I’d personally given up on trying to convince people that privacy was everyone’s problem until I came across this brilliant piece of investigative reporting:

Truly, what could be more insidious and dystopian than a Peter Thiel-backed startup — co-founded by Rudy Giuliani’s former aid — that combines A.I. and facial recognition to help cops match photos of unknown people to their photos scraped from Facebook…

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Devika Daga
OneZero

devikadaga.com • Soon: @digidems for @mtdems • Formerly: @google @googleafrica @DiscoverElement #obama08 • Brooklyn, NY