#DHS #FacialRecognition #ClearView #Surveillance #Biometrics: "The Baker investigation provides a rare insight into how HSI is using facial recognition tools like Clearview AI to quickly chase down new child exploitation leads. But HSI is also using this type of technology in an unprecedented three-week operation to solve years-old crimes that’s led to hundreds of identifications of children and abusers, according to Jim Cole, who spent over two decades on fighting crimes against minors for the HSI and who pushed the initiative before retiring earlier this year. Cole told Forbes the previously unreported task force started operating out of the HSI Cyber Crime Center in mid-July and ended on August 4.
Jim Cole, former HSI child exploitation investigator
“No single effort like this has resulted in that amount of identifications in such a short period of time,” Cole told Forbes. “The tech used can assimilate the data and put that puzzle together. Before, we didn’t have the pieces.”
HSI declined to confirm or comment on the operations’ existence.
Cole declined to name the tools that were used, but sources with knowledge of the operation told Forbes one of them was the controversial facial recognition technology created by Clearview AI. The New York City–based startup claims to have amassed a database of more than 30 billion images scraped without permission from places such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. HSI has signed multiple contracts with Clearview worth up to $2 million, and Clearview has previously said its tech was used by HSI to investigate child exploitation."