this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Privacy
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Let's not forget one teeny tiny fact here: the people whose data Clearview can do whatever the hell it wants put it up online ALL BY THEMSELVES! Clearview scrapes the internet to find its material.
I've refused to have my picture taken since 2000 under any circumstances - be it at work, in group photos in clubs, etc. The reason being, those photos invariably get uploaded somewhere, usually with a caption that says "From left to right: ..."
I've been called paranoid and batshit crazy since 2000. But guess what: Clearview doesn't have my photo. Who's having the last laught now eh?
Clearview is a hateful turd of an outfit. It should be shut down for obscene immorality and its CEO can burn in hell. But let's not forget that it exploits people's carelessness. People's data fuels the corporate surveillance economy and this has been public knowledge for more than a couple of decades. It should come as no surprise that somebody some day would attempt to match people's faces with people's names using the data people themselves provided.
Nope. You can upload images of other ppl too. And even tag them with names etc. Just as a example: old school photos of the entire class.
Did you read what I wrote?
People should be aware of the dangers of group photos, and my point is that they should have known this was coming a long time ago and should limit their exposure.
Just using the information you have posted publicly in various places someone that has access to the right sources could pick your rather unique mobile device out of a haystack with very little issue. Doing so would give them location data that, combined with a number of hobbies you mention, would give them a reasonable assumption of a few different places you could be found in a given area. From that point it's down to either obtaining surveillance video or, more readily, just trawling the background of photos that are tagged with that location and using physical descriptors you've used to determine which individual is you.
And from there it's just a matter of tracing other appearances you made in other people's photos and surveillance video.
They already have you, whether you want them to or not.
Indeed: spend enough time and effort and anybody can be deanonymized and fully documented. The point is that privacy-conscious individuals should make it as difficult to automate as possible.
Clearview - and to a large extent all the other corporate surveillance players - go primarily for the low hanging fruits: people who post selfies with their names attached or don't remove the EXIF data, tagged group photos and such. Bots can easily scrape those. If you go out of your way to either not provide that data in the first place, or pollute the well by providing fake photos and/or fake names attached, you make it harder for big data to exploit your data.
It's still possible, just less likely unless you're a high value target - and realistically, most people aren't.