US Army Now Using Clearview's Unproven Tech To Investigate Crimes

from the sole-source-provider-of-a-service-no-one-else-is-willing-to-create dept

We can add another government agency to the list of entities that have been suckered in by Clearview's highly questionable sales pitches about its unproven tech: the US Army. [Paywall ahead, but alternatives abound.]

The US Army has a contract with Clearview AI, according to documents that reveal the controversial facial-recognition startup making bold claims to the military about capabilities such as "criminal network discovery" and "force protection and area security."

The contract, obtained with other documents by Insider via public-records request, shows the US military awarding a discounted contract for Clearview to work with the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, which investigates serious crimes that could involve active service members or civilian workers for the Army.

Fantastic. Now, let's back up a bit to the opening paragraph. By "highly questionable," I mean many of Clearview's assertions about its crime fighting efficacy have been directly contradicted by law enforcement agencies who've test-driven the product. And by "unproven," I mean Clearview has never submitted its facial recognition AI to outside, independent testing -- like that performed by the NIST. And by "suckered in," I mean the Army fell for all of it, converting its test run of Clearview's tech into a sole-source contract for fifteen licenses.

The memo [PDF] obtained by Business Insider says Clearview is one of a kind.

Clearview Al provides unique and innovative capability with regard to facial recognition technology and its use by law enforcement organizations. The 502d MP BN (CID) has been using this tool on a trial basis and has seen an increase of 15%- 25% success in positively identifying potential subject, victims and witnesses in possible crimes under Army CID jusridiction. They were the only company capable of providing the service.

I'm not sure about that last sentence. It would read better as "the only company willing to provide the service." Unlike other, more reputable facial recognition tech providers, Clearview's database of facial photos and personal information is scraped from thousands of public websites and social media services. It isn't the only company capable of doing this. But so far, it's been the only one willing to scrape the web and sell access to its billions of harvested images.

That may make Clearview unique. But it doesn't make it good or reputable or tolerable. And if the CID is seeing more positive identifications, it's only because it has more images to work with. What it doesn't have is a (excuse the term) battle-tested tech solution.

The claims made by the Army and the claims made by Clearview to the Army haven't been supported by any evidence from either party. Multiple requests for comments, clarifications, or supporting evidence went ignored by both the Army CID and its preferred facial recognition tech provider. Clearview also declined to explain what its marketing material [PDF] means when it claims its AI can help with "force protection and area security" or assist investigators in uncovering "criminal networks."

It also didn't explain this claim, which was almost immediately refuted by the party namechecked in the bullet point.

Later in the flyer, Clearview says that it's been "rated 99.6% accurate" per an accuracy benchmark created by the University of Washington's MegaFace image dataset. This claim hasn't been independently verified by any third party.

"We don't know how they tested their software, and we haven't evaluated their algorithms," Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, former head of the MegaFace challenge, told Insider. "The MegaFace challenge has been closed for a while now, and no one on our teams is working with it."

This tracks with Clearview's previous accuracy assertions. It makes claims but refuses to allow any outside testing of its algorithm. Until it's willing to do that, there's no reason anyone -- much less the investigative wing of the US Army -- should test drive its tech, much less purchase fifteen licenses. The CID is playing with fire here, and those overseeing this division should be demanding answers from Clearview, and blocking access to its tech until it has something more solid than the company's questionable accuracy claims to work with.

Filed Under: army, facial recognition, us army
Companies: clearview

The US Army Gets Armistice With NHL Team Over 'Golden Knights' Trademark

from the fight-to-a-draw dept

NHL fans will likely still have fresh in their minds the surprising rookie season of the Las Vegas Golden Knights, an expansion team that took the league by storm and lost in the Stanley Cup finals. Readers here may remember the team more for the fairly odd trademark dispute it was in with the -- checks notes -- United States Army, which for some reason opposed the team's trademark application due to the Army's college and paratrooping teams that go by the same name.

At the time, we pointed out that the opposition seemed worrisome for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it seems plainly ridiculous for the Army to suggest that anyone was going to be confused between its college teams, its paratrooping team, and an NHL franchise. Was anyone really worried about the public thinking that the United States military had suddenly gotten into the professional hockey business? But we added to that the gross nature of a branch of the United States military, with a long and storied and proud tradition, dabbling in trademark bullying for apparently no legitimate reason.

Which makes the announcement by the Vegas Golden Knights of a coexistence settlement disappointing.

Vegas Golden Knights Chairman and CEO Bill Foley announced today that the Vegas Golden Knights and the U.S. Army have entered into a trademark coexistence agreement regarding usage of the 'Golden Knights' mark and name.

"We are pleased that we have agreed to coexist regarding the use of the 'Golden Knights' mark and name," said Foley. "Our discussions with the Army were collaborative and productive throughout this entire process. We are appreciative of their efforts and commitment to reaching an amicable resolution."

It appears that the specific terms of the settlement aren't being made public. So we don't know, for instance, whether any money has changed hands here, whether a licensing agreement with the Army is now in place (likely), or whether the Army got anything else out of the arrangement. But all of that is besides the point. The real point here is that the Army brought this opposition to a resolution that didn't involve it backing away from it entirely, leaving in place the gross feeling of a military branch meddling in the trademark affairs of a private business on shaky, if any, basis.

These settlements that don't clearly define what is wrong with these types of conflicts are a direct output of our permission culture. The Army participating in this permission culture is a clear, and unfortunate, sign that this sort of thing continues to be pervasive.

Filed Under: hockey, trademark, us army
Companies: golden nights

US Army Files Dumb Trademark Opposition Against The NHL's Las Vegas Golden Knights

from the war-on-ice dept

This post will come as no surprise to those of us super-interesting people that for some reason have made trademark law and news a key fulcrom point in our lives, but the United States Army has filed an opposition to the trademark application for the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Some background is in order should you not be one of the roughly twelve of us in America that are hockey fans.

Starting around 2007, the United States Army went on something of a trademarking spree, filing for marks long in use, including some of the monikers for well known units and/or what I would call "show units", or units that chiefly serve to be seen at entertainment venues such as air and water shows. Included in these marks were the Army's "Black Knights" mascot for its military academy athletic teams and its Golden Knights paratrooping unit that performs at air and water shows all over the country. The army uses these trademarks to rake in millions of dollars in merchandise.

The Las Vegas Golden Knights is an NHL expansion hockey team started by a graduate of West Point, Bill Foley, who wanted the team's garb and name to serve as an homage to his military roots. To that end, he had initially wanted to name the team "The Black Knights", but switched to "The Golden Knights" after the Army voiced its displeasure. The color scheme for the team is a clear call back to the paratrooping team that shares the name.

It has been these clear admissions of homage that the Army has pointed to as an indication that this is obvious trademark infringement.

The Army also highlights public comments made by Golden Knights officials where they admit to trying to connect to the Army. For instance, last July, Golden Knights general manager George McPhee revealed to The Washington Post’s Aaron Torres that the Golden Knights’ color scheme of black, gold, yellow and white was intentionally selected for its similarity to a color scheme used by the Army at West Point. “Bill Foley is a West Point guy,” McPhee noted. “You know his history at West Point. You know about the classmates he had that he lost serving this country. So, those colors mean a lot to us, and will mean a lot to our players. And we’re really proud of the logo. It’s clean, it’s symmetrical, it’s kind of bold and again it stands for something.”

Except that none of that makes any of this trademark infringement. For trademark infringement to have occurred, there needs to be either real or a reasonable likelihood of confusion in the market. While the US Army does sponsor professional sports leagues, and while its paratrooping Golden Knights do put on a show, none of that puts them in the same commercial marketplace as a professional hockey team. And I will say, as an aside, the concept that the United States Army, defenders of the free world, with all of its storied history and tradition, has been reduced to an intellectual property fight over a respectful homage in the professional sports commerce battleground is just sort of gross.

For its part, while the Las Vegas Golden Knights have until late February to respond to the opposition, the team's public statement on the matter doesn't indicate that it will be surrendering to the Army any time soon.

“In the Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Army filed its opposition to the Vegas Golden Knights’ applications to register the trademark VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS used in connection with the sport of hockey. We strongly dispute the Army’s allegations that confusion is likely between the Army Golden Knights parachute team and the Vegas Golden Knights major-league hockey team. Indeed, the two entities have been coexisting without any issues for over a year (along with several other Golden Knights trademark owners) and we are not aware of a single complaint from anyone attending our games that they were expecting to see the parachute team and not a professional hockey game. That said, in light of the pending trademark opposition proceedings, we will have no further comment at this time and will address the Army’s opposition in the relevant legal forums.”

Unless the Army wishes to trivialize its reputation even further, hopefully this opposition will be the one and only pushback on the NHL team it will make.

Filed Under: army, golden knights, hockey, trademark, us army
Companies: las vegas golden knights

US Hypocrisy: Pushing For Maximum Damages For Infringement, While Settling Its Own Piracy Bill For Less

from the but-of-course dept

You may have seen the story over the weekend that the US government had settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against it by Apptricity for $50 million. Basically, the Army licensed Apptricity's server and device software for $4.5 million in 2004, but with a limited number of licenses -- which worked out to $1.35 million per server and $5,000 per device. The Army completely blew through the limit and installed it on another 100 servers and 9,000 devices (the government then tried to hide this from Apptricity). Apptricity noted that, at the existing deal's terms, the Army would have owed it an additional $225 million. The government, of course, settled for $50 million, leading some to note that it appears that by infringing, the government effectively got a 73% discount. Not bad -- though that does assume that the government would have licensed the same number (and that there wouldn't have been some sort of bulk discount).

That said, what strikes me about this is that at the very same time that the Army was ignoring all of this and clearly infringing on the terms of its license, the US government has been pushing a zero tolerance approach to copyright infringement both at home and around the globe. You have Homeland Security and the Justice Department both ramping up prosecutions of intellectual property violations. You have the US State Department going around the globe pushing for stricter and stricter enforcement. And, of course, you have the USTR trying to negotiate draconian criminal penalties into international agreements for copyright infringement.

Hell, if we count each excess installation as a separation copyright violation (and, for what it's worth, there's a reasonable argument that under copyright law multiple installations of the same file only counts as a single violation, rather than multiple -- but the DOJ itself has argued that each copy should count as an individual infringement), and then multiply by the $150,000 that's the top of the line for statutory damages for willful infringement (which this appears to be), the government would have had to pay somewhere around $1.4 billion. And, again, the DOJ itself has regularly argued in court that $150,000 per infringement is perfectly reasonable.

And yet, here, when the US government itself has to pay up, suddenly it gets to do so at a great discount? And this won't change a damn thing in how the rest of the government goes around the globe pushing for extreme punishment for infringement, insisting super high statutory rates are needed to "teach a lesson." Apparently, though, it's a lesson that doesn't apply to the US government itself.

This is part of what's so ridiculous with statutory damages. Copyright holders and maximalist defenders insist they're reasonable... until they realize that they're also infringers. And then suddenly they think it's reasonable for a much, much, much lower number. What a bunch of hypocrites.

Filed Under: copyright, infringement, statutory damages, us army, us government
Companies: apptricity

Army Propaganda Unit Ordered To Illegally Target US Senators With Psy-Ops Propaganda

from the wrong-target,-general dept

Last week, Rolling Stone broke the news that the US Army's team of psy-ops (psychological operations) specialists in Afghanistan were ordered to target their efforts towards visiting US officials rather than Afghanis. This is highly illegal. US law says that any sort of psy-ops/propaganda efforts can only be targeted at foreign citizens:

The incident offers an indication of just how desperate the U.S. command in Afghanistan is to spin American civilian leaders into supporting an increasingly unpopular war. According to the Defense Department's own definition, psy-ops -- the use of propaganda and psychological tactics to influence emotions and behaviors � are supposed to be used exclusively on "hostile foreign groups." Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a "propaganda rider" that also prohibits such manipulation. "Everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you're not supposed to target Americans," says a veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's what you learn on day one."

The army does have a public affairs team, who is supposed to help on domestic issues, but their focus is more of a PR type role, rather than overt propaganda and misdirection. However, it appears that some of the top Army brass in Afghanistan made it clear that the psy-ops team was to focus almost exclusively on visiting Americans, rather than influencing locals. The goal was to convince US politicians to keep sending more money and more men. The psy-ops team resisted and complained, but were continually ordered to do so. When the head of the team consulted a lawyer about the issue -- and was told by the lawyer that his concerns appeared valid -- the army retaliated by opening an investigation of the guy, Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, with what appear to be ridiculously trumped up charges (such as accusing him of using Facebook too much -- something he'd been encouraged to do by his commanders).

And, of course, after all of this, the Pentagon and the Army appear to be working on ways to cover this all up by making it look legit. They've done away with the name "psy-ops," changing it to the bland and vague "MISO" (Military Information Support Operations). Also, a few months later, the entire psy-ops team was told, "effective immediately," that they were being renamed from an "information operation cell" to an "information engagement cell," and told their "sole purpose" was to now do public relations, targeting everyone, including the US. So, basically, after going against the law that forbids propaganda targeted at the US, the Army decided to paper it over by taking the soldiers specifically trained for propaganda and pretending they're just PR people.

Filed Under: afghanistan, propaganda, psy-ops, us army