A few months ago, Apple began to more strictly monitor its own guidelines for corporate certificates. If there are violations, these are revoked - as was the case in the most recent case.
Some of you may remember my article “Revealed: This app could redefine privacy“ – this is about Clearview AI, an application that works with facial recognition and can access a gigantic database. Now, according to a new report, Apple has withdrawn Clearview AI’s company certificate. As part of the “Apple Developer Enterprise Program,” companies can develop and provide apps for internal use. This means that these applications are not listed in the App Store and are accessible to everyone. Marketing such apps outside of the App Store is therefore also not permitted. But that is exactly what Clearview AI did. Now Apple is said to have put a stop to the whole thing – as BuzzFeed reports.
Clearview's business
The company has a database with over three billion entries. When a person is scanned, the app compares the face with the database and identifies its target. The hit rate is said to be around 75 percent. The revelation caused a lot of discussion - goodbye to privacy? But until now the application was not publicly available. The company distributed the app outside of the App Store - a violation of Apple's terms of use. But now this is to stop. According to the BuzzFeed report:
In its quest to create a global biometric identification system that spans both the public and private sectors, Clearview has signed paid contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and Macy's, according to the document obtained by BuzzFeed News. The company has approved users at the FBI, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Interpol and hundreds of local police departments. In doing so, Clearview has taken a "flood-the-zone" approach to finding new customers, granting access not only to organizations but also to individuals within those organizations -- sometimes with little or no oversight or awareness from its own management.
After the article was published, Apple responded to BuzzFeed and confirmed the temporary deactivation of the developer account. According to Cupertino, Clearview AI now has 14 days to comment on the misuse of the company certificate. (Photo by vladimircaribb / Bigstockphoto)
