US Customs and Border Protection Signs One-Year Clearview AI Facial Recognition Deal

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has signed a one-year agreement with Clearview AI, granting its intelligence units access to the controversial facial recognition tool for border security operations.

According to documents obtained by Wired, the deal allows CBP's tactical and intelligence units to use Clearview's facial recognition technology for "tactical targeting" and "strategic counter-network analysis." The agreement, which runs for one year, provides access to Clearview's database of billions of images scraped from the internet without user consent.

Clearview AI has faced significant legal challenges over its data collection practices. The company's technology has been used by law enforcement agencies across the United States, despite concerns about privacy violations and the lack of regulatory oversight for facial recognition systems.

The CBP deal comes amid growing debate about the use of AI-powered surveillance tools by government agencies. Privacy advocates have long criticized Clearview AI's business model of scraping public photos from social media and other websites to build its facial recognition database.

This development follows other recent government contracts involving AI companies, including reports that the Pentagon is pushing major AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic to make their tools available on classified networks without standard user restrictions.

Key Details:

• One-year agreement between CBP and Clearview AI
• Access granted for "tactical targeting" and "strategic counter-network analysis"
• Clearview's database contains billions of images scraped from the internet
• Deal raises ongoing privacy and surveillance concerns

The use of Clearview AI by federal agencies continues to spark debate about the balance between national security needs and individual privacy rights in an era of increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology.