Belgian police used Clearview AI much more often than thought – IT Pro – News

The top of the Belgian police knew from the start that two agents had tried the Clearview AI software, but kept it from the minister. This is apparent from a new report, which also states that the Belgian police consulted the software 78 times, not 2 times.

None of those 78 times the search led to a useful result, according to a report of the Supervisory Body on police information† That report is now with the Belgian Chamber. “The Clearview application was first tested by users on their personal photos and those of acquaintances/colleagues to test the effectiveness of the facial recognition technology,” the Regulatory Body writes. The aim was to eventually track down perpetrators in child pornography cases.

The top was fully aware of trying out Clearview. “This means that the hierarchy of the federal judicial police immediately after the task force at Europol and thus for files in which

members of the Federal Judicial Police were aware of and authorized the use of Clearview facial recognition technology. The latter is also apparent from the finding that the paid use of the Clearview application by the federal judicial police was subsequently investigated but ultimately not carried out.”

The fact that the Commissioner General initially denied the use of Clearview is “remarkable,” according to the report. “It goes without saying that this finding is at odds with the duty of cooperation that is legally imposed on the supervised police services,” according to the Supervisory Body. According to the regulator, it is damaging to trust in the police services. “In the context of the contradiction, the Commissioner General states that he does not see any willful concealment from DGJ, but rather a combination of circumstances that have meant that the information exchange did not proceed as desired.”

The Supervisory Body finds it especially bad that no one at the police has given any thought to the consequences. “The federal judicial police do not seem to realize that this does not only mean that police photos are forwarded to a commercial company, and then outside the European Union, nor that the biometric data, in this case facial features, have since been kept by the company Clearview.” The use of the app is illegal, also for police services, says the regulator.

Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden admitted last year that the previous denials were incorrect and that two detectives had tried clearview† At the time, the minister thought that the software had only been used at an event in The Hague in consultation with the FBI, but according to the Supervisory Body, use continued. Clearview scrapes images of faces and other personal data from social media to recognize people’s faces.