Individual Business Archives

Clearview AI Is Facing A $23 Million Fine Over Facial Recognition In The UK

by Author20/03/202327/10/2022

The UK’s national privacy watchdog on Monday warned Clearview AI that the controversial facial recognition company faces a potential fine of £17 million, or $23 million, for “alleged serious breaches” of the country’s data protection laws. The regulator also demanded the company delete the personal information of people in the UK.

Photos in Clearview AI’s database “are likely to include the data of a substantial number of people from the UK and may have been gathered without people’s knowledge from publicly available information online, including social media platforms,” the Information Commissioner’s Office said in a statement on Monday.

In February 2020, BuzzFeed News first reported that individuals at the National Crime Agency, the Metropolitan Police, and a number of other police forces across England were listed as having access to Clearview’s facial recognition technology, according to internal data. The company has built its business by scraping people’s photos from the web and social media and indexing them in a vast facial recognition database.

In March, a BuzzFeed News investigation based on Clearview AI’s own internal data revealed how the New York–based startup marketed its facial recognition tool — by offering free trials for its mobile app or desktop software — to thousands of officers and employees at more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities, according to data that runs up until February 2020. In August, another BuzzFeed News investigation showed how police departments, prosecutors’ offices, and interior ministries from around the world ran nearly 14,000 searches over the same period with

Fox News Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski Killed In Ukraine

by Author14/03/202327/10/2022

A Fox News camera operator and a local producer who were covering the war in Ukraine have died after the vehicle in which they were traveling was struck by incoming fire, the network announced Tuesday.

Camera operator Pierre Zakrzewski’s death was announced in a memo to employees by Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott that was shared with BuzzFeed News. Scott said Zakrzewski, 55, died after coming under fire in Horenka, a village northwest of Kyiv, on Monday.

Scott later confirmed that Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova was also killed in the same incident. The 24-year-old had been working for Fox as a producer, assisting the network’s crew.

Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall was also injured in the attack and has been hospitalized in Ukraine.

“Pierre Zakrzewski was an absolute legend at this network and his loss is devastating,” anchor Bill Hemmer told Fox News viewers on Tuesday morning.

London-based Zakrzewski, who was Irish, had been in Ukraine since February, having previously covered multiple wars for Fox, including the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. In December, Fox News awarded him an “Unsung Hero” award to recognize his work.

“[Zakrzewski’s] talents were vast and there wasn’t a role that he didn’t jump in to help with in the field — from photographer to engineer to editor to producer — and he did it all under immense pressure with tremendous skills,” Scott wrote in her memo. “He was profoundly committed to telling the story and his bravery, professionalism, and work ethic

Judge Rules Mail On Sunday Article Defamatory

by Author11/03/202327/10/2022

The High Court judge agreed with this interpretation, writing that the story could lead readers to believe that Harry had purposefully tried to bamboozle the public about the truth of his legal proceedings against the government.

“It may be possible to ‘spin’ facts in a way that does not mislead, but the allegation being made in the article was very much that the object was to mislead the public,” the judge wrote. “That supplies the necessary element to make the meanings defamatory at common law.”

Nicklin also determined that the story’s description of how Harry and his lawyers had attempted to keep his effort to secure police protection from the Home Office confidential met the threshold for defamation.

The “natural and ordinary” meaning of the Mail on Sunday article, Nicklin wrote, was that Harry “had initially sought confidentiality restrictions that were far-reaching and unjustifiably wide and were rightly challenged by the Home Office on the grounds of transparency and open justice .”

The High Court justice wrote that “the message that comes across clearly, in the headlines and [specific] paragraphs” of the Mail on Sunday story met the common law requirements for defamation.

Throughout the judgment, Nicklin emphasized that his decision was “very much the first phase in a libel claim.”

“The next step will be for the defendant to file a defense to the claim. It will be a matter for determination later in the proceedings whether the claim succeeds or fails, and on what basis,” Nicklin wrote.