When law enforcement seeks to identify the suspects and victims involved in missing and exploited children cases, sometimes the only lead is an image. Many such cases go unsolved. But over the past decade, facial recognition technology has helped solve more cases by enabling law enforcement to quickly connect names to images extracted from all types of content.
Facial recognition technology has existed in various forms since the 1960s. But only recently has it achieved a level of sophistication where it’s possible to identify a person through a single facial image — even one that’s grainy or taken from an off angle — by comparing it to the billions of facial images that exist online.
This is the capability provided by Clearview AI. Founded in 2017, the facial recognition company offers law enforcement agencies access to a database containing more than 20 billion facial images collected by publicly available means, such as images sourced from public social media posts, personal and professional websites, news articles, online mugshots, public record sites and thousands of other open sources.
It’s been a game-changer for law enforcement officials working human trafficking cases.