https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/technology/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-settlement.html
Also please don’t tell me that there’s a paywall. I know. I’m sure this tech-savvy group of people can find a way to bypass it and/or ignore this post.
The stake in the company isn’t enough since in the future that stake may be diluted. Also, when one person sells their stock, each class member’s shares may lose value so individuals selling their shares would get variable amounts as a settlement. Most of all, the value of stolen data here exceeds the value of clearview itself. The company should’ve seen an insurmountable debt from this given they’re worth under $300m and the US itself has over 300m people.
But even the concept of giving victims stake in the company is concerning. As stated in the article:
“Now you have people who are injured by Clearview trampling on their privacy rights becoming financially interested in Clearview finding new ways to trample them,” he said.
Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a privacy advocacy organization, was also critical.
“If mass surveillance is harmful, the remedy should be stopping them from doing that, not paying pennies to the people who are harmed,” Ms. Greer said.
Yeah, it’s sad they got away with it. The US is becoming a data harvesting hub thanks to unregulated use of AI. Europe tries to do better but we’ll see if their AI bill pans out.
Sometimes turning off JavaScript allows you to bypass paywalls.
Edit: Doesn’t work this time.