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What if you could be identified by anyone with just a blurry photo?

When the US journalist Kashmir Hill stumbled upon Clearview AI in 2019, a facial recognition platform with an alleged 98.6% accuracy rate, the implications were startling, and worrying. She set out to find out who were the people behind Clearview and just who was using its technology.

The story of this tiny start-up and the powerful tool it built is accompanied by accounts of how it has been used for good and for ill, across the world.

Today Clearview AI declares that it has a database of 50 billion facial images sourced "from public-only web sources, including news media, mugshot websites, public social media, and many other open sources." Your face may well belong to them.

Your Face Belongs To Us was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science book prize 2024 and described by the Financial Times as "A parable for our times". According to The Economist, "A walk down the street will not quite feel the same again."

The Author, Kashmir Hill, is an award-winning technology reporter at The New York Times. She is interested in how technology is shaping our lives and impacting our privacy, and has written for publications including The New Yorker, The Washington Post and Forbes.

Written by Kashmir Hill
Read by Julianna Jennings
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4