Two Belgian detectives tried out Clearview facial recognition software – IT Pro – News

Two Belgian detectives have used a trial license of the controversial facial recognition software Clearview AI. This is acknowledged by Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden after she had previously denied this twice.

The minister says the two federal police detectives used Clearview AI in October 2019, writes Knack. They attended a meeting of Europol’s Victim Identification Task Force and were given access to ‘a trial license valid for a limited period’.

According to Verlinden, Clearview was presented by the FBI and ‘a limited number of consultations’ were carried out with Clearview. The Belgian detectives then supplied photos themselves. Verlinden emphasizes that Clearview is not used structurally; As far as we know, this is the only time Clearview has been used by the Belgian police.

The Belgian Control Body for Police Information, COC for short, has asked the federal police additional questions about the use of Clearview. Answers to this are expected in a week and a half.

Buzzfeed wrote earlier that Clearview would have customers in Belgium, the federal police would have used the service one hundred to five hundred times. It is therefore not clear whether the two detectives have used the service so often together, whether the Buzzfeed figures are incorrect, or whether there are more detectives who had access to the service.

Although Verlinden says that Clearview AI is not used structurally now, she does indicate that facial recognition is ‘an interesting track’ to support the tasks of the police. “But that is of course only possible with a correct legal basis,” says Verlinden.

The Netherlands is also on the Buzzfeed lists. The Dutch government has already denied twice that the Dutch police uses Clearview. Clearview scrapes images of faces and other personal data from social media to recognize people’s faces.

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