The San Mateo County Sheriffâs Office is considering purchasing a facial recognition software created by the company Clearview AI after testing it around 2,000 times.
A BuzzFeedNews investigation published late last month found that use of the software, which compares photographs of people to images from public web sources like social media in order to identify them, was widespread. It found thousands of government entities and private businesses in the United States and abroad using the software, and attributed the information to an anonymous source.
Among the users it found was the San Mateo County Sheriffâs Office, which was said to have logged around 2,000 uses of the software between 2018 and 2020. When first asked by BuzzFeed reporters about the departmentâs use of the software, Public Information Officer Rosemerry Blankswade reportedly said, âNo one is able to speak about these matters at this time.â