Clearview AI scrapes 60 billion faces to end anonymous public life

Clearview AI scraped over 60 billion images from public social media, news outlets, mugshot websites and other open sources to build its facial recognition database.

More than 2,200 U.S. law enforcement agencies had licensed access to Clearview AI by 2024, a number that grew to over 3,000 by early 2026 as CBP, ICE, and local police expanded subscriptions.

On Jun. 11, 2025, Clearview AI's new CEO Hal Lambert announced a push to secure U.S. federal government contracts after winning a CBP facial recognition contract for 15 intelligence-division licenses.

In a nationwide class-action settlement, Clearview AI agreed to pay or allocate $51.75 million for alleged biometric privacy violations.

Independent studies and civil-rights organizations report that Clearview's claimed accuracy masks significantly higher error rates for women, people of color and the elderly — a pattern documented across facial recognition vendors by NIST.

Civil-rights groups warn that ubiquitous facial recognition surveillance chills First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly by deterring protest and political participation.

Clearview AI technology has been banned or ruled illegal in seven countries over privacy law violations, including France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Australia, and the UK.

Civil-rights monitors report that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have deployed Clearview AI's facial recognition tools in state surveillance programs.

Clearview AI offers an opt-out process for individuals to request removal of their images, though it requires proactive individual action and does not prevent government agencies with existing contracts from continuing to use stored data.

As of early 2025, Clearview AI reported approximately $16 million in annual recurring revenue, despite remaining unprofitable — with government contracts now driving its growth as the company was previously blocked from commercial markets by courts in several countries.