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Have you ever thought about what it means to be anonymous? Have you considered what it means that you can walk down the street or go to the grocery store or out to dinner without someone you've never met knowing your name, everything you've posted online, or your political leanings? Or when you go on a first date with someone, they'd walk in knowing your dating history, your political affiliations, your credit score or what groceries you buy? Advancements in facial recognition and a secretive startup could end privacy as we know it. In this two-part conversation, New York Times Tech Reporter Kashmir Hill joins host Ron Steslow to discuss privacy, anonymity, facial recognition software and her book Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It. In part 1: (01:43 ) Ron and Kashmir discuss anonymity and privacy and the erosion of both in our daily lives (00:00 ) Balancing convenience and privacy (11:00) The origins of ClearviewAI (13:30) Genetic determinism in the development of facial recognition (18:20) Kashmir dives deep into the history of facial recognition software and how it developed. (22:37) How Facebook crowdsourced training facial recognition technology (25:00) How much privacy should we have and who should be able to use facial recognition software? Read Your Face Belongs to Us: https://bit.ly/49qsbQm Follow Ron and Kashmir on X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/RonSteslow https://twitter.com/kashhill Email your questions and thoughts to podcast@politicology.com or leave us a voicemail at (202) 455-4558. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Ayush Tiwari from Scroll and independent journalist Srishti Jaswal.Ayush reported on shady land deals in Ayodhya, where a firm linked to the BJP sold ecologically sensitive land to the Adani group. He explains how there have been other “crazy” land deals over the past years.Srishti talks about her report on the BJP's data collection app, Saral, and what the party hopes to achieve from it. She says data manipulation in India is “too easy”.Tune in!Timecodes00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:20 - Land deals in Ayodhya00:20:41 - Data collection in India00:44:55 - RecommendationsRecommendationsSrishtiFaiz Ahmad FaizAyushThe windfall gains made in the name of the Ram templeYour Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know ItBasantIn Ayodhya, firm linked to BJP leaders sold ecologically sensitive land to Adani – for a big profitAyodhya: Temple is inaugurated, ‘Balak Ram' consecrated. What next?Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, and recorded by Anil Kumar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
From unlocking our phones, to scanning our faces to board flights, facial recognition technology has become a ubiquitous part of modern life. And while its implementation can make life easier, what are the ramifications of companies capturing and selling our biometric data? And do we really own our faces? Our guest this week points that unregulated, this technological superpower can lead to dystopian, sci-fi novel-like applications. Kashmir Hill is a tech reporter at the New York Times and author of “Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It,” in which she chronicles the rise of Clearview AI. She joins WITHpod to discuss the growth of this technology, privacy concerns, ways in which our online “dossiers” are linked to our faces and more.
Greetings Glocal Citizens! In some circles, my guest for this two-part episode could be thought of as a spy by a different name. With roots in Jamaica, and raised between the Middle East, Europe and the United States, Suki Fuller (https://www.chartwellspeakers.com/speaker/suki-fuller/), an intelligence advisor, author, acclaimed international keynote speaker and Fellow of The Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellows (https://www.cifellows.com/) is a women that is usually intent on not being watched. She is the Founder of Miribure, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of DC Analytics (https://www.dcanalytics.net/) and Storyteller for Group of Humans (https://www.groupofhumans.com/). She is a contributing author to A Practical Guide to Competitive Intelligence (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Guide-Competitive-Intelligence/dp/B0BDSRQL6R/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1). Suki is a fierce supporter of intelligence, ethical tech, #SafetyTech, Security, Privacy and Surveillance. Her eclectic 20-year career within strategic intelligence and technology has taken her from the US Department of Defense to teaching business students in China. She currently resides in London, where she is an intrinsic part of the tech community as a Board Advisor for Tech London Advocates / Global Tech Advocates (https://techlondonadvocates.org.uk/), which includes key positions as Co-Lead TLA Women in Tech (https://tlawomenintech.org/), and Vice-Chair for GTA Black Women in Tech (https://theblackwomenintech.com/). Suki was recently named by the Most Influential Woman in UK Tech by Computer Weekly 2023. There's so much more to this #dynamicdiasporan, I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Where to find Suki? On LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sukifuller) On X (https://twitter.com/SukiFuller) On Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sukifuller) What's Suki reading? Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life (https://a.co/d/64cWKM2) by Arnold Schwarzeneger Cobalt Red: How the Boll of the Congo Powers Our Lives (https://a.co/d/1dydGko) by Siddharth Kara The Mircostress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems--and What to Do About It (https://a.co/d/4bnLMTL) by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace: A Guide for Equity and Inclusion (https://a.co/d/e3driEg) by Janice Gassam Asare Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (https://a.co/d/jenKHdt) by Kashmir HIll What's Suki watching? Beckham on Netflix (https://www.netflix.com/gh/title/81223488) The Power on Amazon Prime (https://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Season-1/dp/B0B8NT89QY) Other topics of interest: Balham, London (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balham) Surrey, United Kingdom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey) Some Jamaican Patios to practice (https://jamaicans.com/talk/) About Rastafarianism (https://www.history.com/topics/religion/history-of-rastafarianism) Pismo Beach, California (https://www.experiencepismobeach.com/things-to-do/) Royal Air Force Lakenheath, an American Air Force Base in the UK (https://www.lakenheath.af.mil/About-Us/) Penn State's Behrend College (https://behrend.psu.edu) About Chi Chi's Restaurant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi%27s) Mercyhurst University - Intelligence Studies (https://www.mercyhurst.edu/academics/intelligence-studies) Agatha Christie's Poirot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie%27s_Poirot) Twitter and SXSW (https://techcrunch.com/2011/01/04/twitter-foursquare-sxsw/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFBYPgujumoLKi9A5VgBkTDxG8QNcxdjmAWoTu0hJ36YplpYzN0SOG3SBHa85cU1stTSfVXIJPVKJQ_FRbP3HYbfjY8-8AeafD8xZVnQLYwIAuX4D9dqU70nJtSh-kQaaqi6HgHdfw5ijngMGQazuoGTaQRqmCVdoSLk_MceS70J) About Robert Baker (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-baker-potentia-talent-consulting/?originalSubdomain=uk) Innit? (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=innit) IA Safety Bill (https://aibusiness.com/responsible-ai/online-safety-bill-passes-ai-chatbots-subject-to-rules-on-protecting-users#close-modal) The Pod Generation Film (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pod_Generation) Special Guest: Suki Fuller.
Kashmir Hill is a tech reporter at The New York Times, where her writing about the intersection of privacy and technology pioneered the genre. Her new book is "Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It."
Greetings Glocal Citizens! In some circles, my guest for this two-part episode could be thought of as a spy by a different name. With roots in Jamaica, and raised between the Middle East, Europe and the United States, Suki Fuller (https://www.chartwellspeakers.com/speaker/suki-fuller/), an intelligence advisor, author, acclaimed international keynote speaker and Fellow of The Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellows (https://www.cifellows.com/) is a women that is usually intent on not being watched. She is the Founder of Miribure, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of DC Analytics (https://www.dcanalytics.net/) and Storyteller for Group of Humans (https://www.groupofhumans.com/). She is a contributing author to A Practical Guide to Competitive Intelligence (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Guide-Competitive-Intelligence/dp/B0BDSRQL6R/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1). Suki is a fierce supporter of intelligence, ethical tech, #SafetyTech, Security, Privacy and Surveillance. Her eclectic 20-year career within strategic intelligence and technology has taken her from the US Department of Defense to teaching business students in China. She currently resides in London, where she is an intrinsic part of the tech community as a Board Advisor for Tech London Advocates / Global Tech Advocates (https://techlondonadvocates.org.uk/), which includes key positions as Co-Lead TLA Women in Tech (https://tlawomenintech.org/), and Vice-Chair for GTA Black Women in Tech (https://theblackwomenintech.com/). Suki was recently named by the Most Influential Woman in UK Tech by Computer Weekly 2023. There's so much more to this #dynamicdiasporan, I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Where to find Suki? On LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sukifuller) On X (https://twitter.com/SukiFuller) On Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sukifuller) What's Suki reading? Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life (https://a.co/d/64cWKM2) by Arnold Schwarzeneger Cobalt Red: How the Boll of the Congo Powers Our Lives (https://a.co/d/1dydGko) by Siddharth Kara The Mircostress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems--and What to Do About It (https://a.co/d/4bnLMTL) by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace: A Guide for Equity and Inclusion (https://a.co/d/e3driEg) by Janice Gassam Asare Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (https://a.co/d/jenKHdt) by Kashmir HIll What's Suki watching? Beckham on Netflix (https://www.netflix.com/gh/title/81223488) The Power on Amazon Prime (https://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Season-1/dp/B0B8NT89QY) Other topics of interest: Balham, London (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balham) Surrey, United Kingdom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey) Some Jamaican Patios to practice (https://jamaicans.com/talk/) About Rastafarianism (https://www.history.com/topics/religion/history-of-rastafarianism) Pismo Beach, California (https://www.experiencepismobeach.com/things-to-do/) Royal Air Force Lakenheath, an American Air Force Base in the UK (https://www.lakenheath.af.mil/About-Us/) Penn State's Behrend College (https://behrend.psu.edu) About Chi Chi's Restaurant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi%27s) Mercyhurst University - Intelligence Studies (https://www.mercyhurst.edu/academics/intelligence-studies) Agatha Christie's Poirot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie%27s_Poirot) Twitter and SXSW (https://techcrunch.com/2011/01/04/twitter-foursquare-sxsw/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFBYPgujumoLKi9A5VgBkTDxG8QNcxdjmAWoTu0hJ36YplpYzN0SOG3SBHa85cU1stTSfVXIJPVKJQ_FRbP3HYbfjY8-8AeafD8xZVnQLYwIAuX4D9dqU70nJtSh-kQaaqi6HgHdfw5ijngMGQazuoGTaQRqmCVdoSLk_MceS70J) About Robert Baker (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-baker-potentia-talent-consulting/?originalSubdomain=uk) Innit? (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=innit) IA Safety Bill (https://aibusiness.com/responsible-ai/online-safety-bill-passes-ai-chatbots-subject-to-rules-on-protecting-users#close-modal) The Pod Generation Film (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pod_Generation) Special Guest: Suki Fuller.
Kara and Scott discuss why Jeff Bezos is really moving to Florida, major changes coming to the real estate business and Elon's new AI bot, Grok. Plus, what's next for crypto and investors after Sam Bankman-Fried's guilty verdict. Then, with less than a year to go until the 2024 presidential election, should everyone calm down about the latest polls? Finally, our Friend of Pivot is New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill, who has written about facial recognition and privacy in her new book, "Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It." You can follow Kashmir at @kashhill Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Deana and Natasha sit down with Kashmir Hill, author of Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It. They cover the story of Clearview AI, the risks and potential benefits of AI facial recognition technology and the state of regulation surrounding this tech. They talk about how privacy is an important but overlooked conversation in many circles, and how the real impact and potential harm of AI facial recognition technology brings the need for privacy advocacy to life. Natasha and Deana end the episode with draft tweets. Subscribe to the Boys Club newsletter here! Boys Club is proudly supported by Kraken. Kraken is a crypto exchange for everyone.
When tech journalist Kashmir Hill got a tip about a mysterious app, Clearview AI, that claimed it could identify anyone based on just one photo, she was skeptical. But when she found out the app was for real, she quickly realized it could lead to a dystopian future where privacy is a thing of the past. Guest: Kashmir Hill Book: "Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It" Host: Panio Gianopoulos
Today, I'm talking to Kashmir Hill, a New York Times reporter whose new book, Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It, chronicles the story of Clearview AI, a company that's built some of the most sophisticated facial recognition and search technology that's ever existed. As Kashmir reports, you simply plug a photo of someone into Clearview's app, and it will find every photo of that person that's ever been posted on the internet. It's breathtaking and scary. Kashmir was the journalist who broke the first story about Clearview's existence, starting with a bombshell investigation report that blew the doors open on the company's clandestine operations. Over the past few years, she's been relentlessly reporting on Clearview's growth, the privacy implications of facial recognition technology, and all of the cautionary tales that inevitably popped up, from wrongful arrests to billionaires using the technology for personal vendettas. The book is fantastic. If you're a Decoder listener, you're going to love it, and I highly recommend it. Links: The secretive company that may end privacy as we know it What we learned about Clearview AI and its secret ‘co-founder' Clearview AI does well in another round of facial recognition accuracy tests Facebook and LinkedIn are latest to demand Clearview stop scraping images for facial recognition tech hiQ and LinkedIn reach proposed settlement in landmark scraping case My chilling run-in with a secretive facial-recognition app Clearview's facial recognition app Is identifying child victims of abuse ‘Thousands of dollars for something I didn't do' Facebook officially addressed the conspiracy theory about listening to your phone calls How we store and search 30 billion faces Clearview AI agrees to permanent ban on selling facial recognition to private companies Clearview fined again in France for failing to comply with privacy orders Judge approves $650 million Facebook privacy settlement over facial recognition feature Privacy law prevents Illinoisans from using Google app's selfie art feature Madison Square Garden uses facial recognition to ban its owner's enemies Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23683175 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today's episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
New York Times Technology Reporter Kashmir Hill discusses her book Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It.Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New York Times Technology Reporter Kashmir Hill discusses her book Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It.Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit davidlat.substack.comWelcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking on the button below. Thanks!Looking back over my time at Above the Law, one of the things I'm most proud of is the talent I discovered. My first full-time hire was Elie Mystal, now the justice correspondent on The Nation, frequent television commentator, and author of the bestselling Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. My second full-time hire was Kashmir Hill, now at the New York Times, who has a book of her own: Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It, published last month by Penguin Random House.Your Face Belongs to Us is about the future of facial-recognition technology, an incredibly powerful tool with great promise and peril. The book is a story about privacy and technology, but it's also a story about the law and legal issues. The future of facial recognition will be shaped profoundly by legal responses. Can we craft laws that allow society to take advantage of the benefits of this technology while at the same time preserving the privacy that it threatens?In my podcast interview with Kashmir, I pushed back on some of the more dystopian elements of Your Face Belongs to Us. I pressed her on whether she might be underestimating the positive aspects of facial-recognition technology, such as its use by law enforcement (such as tracking down January 6 rioters for arrest and prosecution). We analyzed the crucial role played by lawyers in the story of Clearview AI, the mysterious startup at the heart of the book; they include Paul Clement, Floyd Abrams, Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, and attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). And we explored stories of facial-recognition technology gone wrong, including innocent people arrested for crimes they didn't commit because of false positives on Clearview and similar software.Thanks to Kashmir for joining me, as well as for her important work exploring the legal and policy aspects of a transformative but troubling technology.Show Notes:* Kashmir Hill bio, author website* Kashmir Hill archives, The New York Times* Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It, AmazonPrefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.Sponsored by:NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment@nexfirm.com.
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications
New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person's online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true? In this riveting account, Hill tracks the improbable rise of Clearview AI, helmed by Hoan Ton-That, an Australian computer engineer, and Richard Schwartz, a former Rudy Giuliani advisor, and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. The company was boosted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles C. Johnson and billionaire Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel—who all seemed eager to release this society-altering technology on the public. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world. Facial recognition technology has been quietly growing more powerful for decades. This technology has already been used in wrongful arrests in the United States. Unregulated, it could expand the reach of policing, as it has in China and Russia, to a terrifying, dystopian level. Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House, 2023) is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.” Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake's work has been published in top venues such as ACM's CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
Kashmir Hill is a tech reporter for The New York Times. Her new book is Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It. “I often do feel like what my work is doing is preparing people for the way the world is going to change. With something like facial recognition technology, that's really important because if the world is changing such that every photo of you taken that's uploaded is going to be findable, it's going to change the decisions that you make.” Show notes: kashmirhill.com Hill on Longform Hill's New York Times archive Hill's Gizmodo archive Hill's Forbes archive 01:00 "Life Without the Tech Giants" (Gizmodo • Jan 2019) 01:00 "Living On Bitcoin for a Week: The Journey Begins" (Forbes • May 2013) 01:00 "Your Face Is Not Your Own" (New York Times • Mar 2021) 01:00 Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It (Random House • 2023) 03:00 "Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here's What Happened" (Wired • Nov 2009) 11:00 Hill's Above the Law archive 16:00 Immersion: A Writer's Guide to Going Deep (Ted Conover • University of Chicago Press • 2016) 19:00 "The House That Spied on Me" (Gizmodo • Feb 2018) 23:00 "I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband's Every Move" (New York Times • Feb 2022) 25:00 "Bing's A.I. Chat: ‘I Want to Be Alive'" (Kevin Roose • New York Times • Feb 2023) 26:00 "What Our Reporter Learned Delivering Burritos to New Yorkers" (Andy Newman • New York Times • July 2019) 27:00 "A Vast Web of Vengeance" (New York Times • Jun 2023) 27:00 "The Slander Industry" (Aaron Krolik and Kashmir Hill • New York Times • Apr 2021) 55:00 Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa • 1950) 59:00 "Eight Months Pregnant and Arrested After False Facial Recognition Match" (New York Times • Aug 2023) 68:00 "Clearview's Facial Recognition App Has Been Used By The Justice Department, ICE, Macy's, Walmart, And The NBA" (Ryan Mac, Caroline Haskins, Logan McDonald • Buzzfeed • Feb 2020) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In 2019, journalist Kashmir Hill had just joined The New York Times when she got a tip about the existence of a company called Clearview AI that claimed it could identify almost anyone with a photo. But the company was hard to contact, and people who knew about it didn't want to talk. Hill resorted to old fashioned shoe-leather reporting, trying to track down the company and its executives. By January of 2020, the Times was ready to report what she had learned in a piece titled “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It.” Three years later, Hill has published a book that tells the story of Clearview AI, but with the benefit of a great deal more reporting and study on the social, political, and technological forces behind it. It's called Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy As We Know It, just out from Penguin Random House.
Kashmir Hill joins us to discuss her new book "Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It," and to scare us with the advances in facial recognition technology. Billy confuses Jason Bourne and Michael Bourn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Kashmir Hill joins us to discuss her new book "Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It," and to scare us with the advances in facial recognition technology. Billy confuses Jason Bourne and Michael Bourn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In November of 2019, New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill got a tip that immediately had her on high alert. It was about a secretive tech company called Clearview AI, that claimed to have developed a facial recognition app that could identify people with 99 percent accuracy. The company had apparently scraped billions of images from the internet to create this tool, and was already offering this software to police departments across the U.S.The tip sent Hill on a chase to find out who was behind this company and how this tool was being used. Her new book, "Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It," details what she found. On this podcast extra, Hill joins us to talk about the company's billionaire investors, the mysterious and glamorous tech genius at its center, and what all of this means for our right to privacy.