Docs show Best Buy and Walmart, alongside ICE, DOJ, and FBI, are among the 2,200+ companies and law enforcement agencies listed as clients of Clearview AI
This client-list leak is the earliest document in an arc that BuzzFeed News has tracked for two years: in May 2020, under mounting scrutiny, Clearview said it was canceling accounts not tied to law enforcement or government — which makes the retailers named here, Best Buy, Walmart, and Macy's, the clearest evidence of the commercial customer base that no longer exists publicly.
The law-enforcement side of the list only grew afterward: by 2021, a source shared data showing employees at [[a:1159954|1,803 public agencies ran roughly 340K searches without telling their departments or the public]], and later analysis found even the GAO's audit missed five federal users. This story is where both threads start — one client roster naming police and stores at once.
First-order effects
Best Buy, Walmart, and Macy's are exposed as facial-recognition customers at a time when their use of the tool on shoppers was undisclosed, putting their privacy practices on the record alongside ICE, DOJ, and the FBI.
Clearview's sales pitch to police is now corroborated by documents rather than marketing claims, giving reporters and regulators a concrete client roster to audit against.
Second-order effects
Commercial scrutiny becomes untenable: within months Clearview cancels non-law-enforcement accounts, conceding that retail surveillance was the reputational liability while government contracts like ICE's later 'mission support' deal became the defensible core business.
Retailers' names on the list give privacy advocates a specific corporate target, forcing individual companies to answer for biometric data practices they had never acknowledged publicly.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — agencies adopting the tool faster than oversight can track it, as the GAO gap and unreported local usage showed — facial-recognition procurement becomes a governance problem that audits after the fact cannot solve, pushing toward pre-purchase disclosure rules and bans at the state level.
The market bifurcates structurally: facial-recognition vendors survive by serving government exclusively, which concentrates the technology in law-enforcement hands and removes the commercial accountability lever entirely.
The trend: Facial recognition is consolidating from a diffuse commercial-and-police tool into a government-centric industry whose scale outruns official oversight.
One striking thing about corporate use of Clearview AI - in many cases the companies simply aren't aware their staff are using it, or deny it completely https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
This is it. Put the law enforcement use of facial recognition company Clearview to the side. The client list includes private companies, despite Clearview saying clearly—lying—that it was just for governments to use https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
This new application will save millions of lives We will be able to detect criminals instantly and arrest the worst in our society Why do Democrats want to ban this app and allow criminals a chance to run free? 🤔 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
From where you grocery shop to where you go to school to how you're policed, it's pretty damning to see the number of organizations that were pitched this tool and thought “yeah, sign me up.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
The Clearview client list includes private investigators and security companies. These are exactly the sort of firms that, beyond a crooked cop, are totally ripe for abuse of tools like this https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
NEW: Clearview's facial recognition tech has been used at every level of US government — ICE, the Justice Department, and FBI — as well as by Best Buy, Macy's, and the NBA, documents obtained by @BuzzFeedNews reveal https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
Maryland has betrayed the trust of thousands of immigrants and allowed ICE to use of facial recognition software to target the most vulnerable. This is inhumane. Immigrants are people. It's time we abolish ICE. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
When we focus only on banning law enforcement and government use of #facialrecognition we're missing the point. There are so many creepy, discriminatory, abusive and downright dystopian things that private companies and even individuals can do with it https://www.buzzfeednews.com…
BIG scoop from @carolineha_ @RMac18 @_loganmcdonald Also: Vadodara City Police in India signed up for Clearview AI last month and ran a handful of searches. When asked by @BuzzFeedNews, Commissioner Anupam Gahlaut texted an ominous “We have not started yet” and stopped responding…
ICE has run facial recognition searches on millions of drivers in Maryland, including some 275k undocumented immigrants, reports @washingtonpost. The state's database includes personal information such as the names and addresses of ~7 million drivers statewide. https://twitter.co…
“It's strictly for law enforcement,” Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That said earlier this month. ... But in reality, Clearview AI has also been aggressively pursuing clients in industries such as law, retail, banking, and gaming and pushing into international markets ...." https://twitt…
And here it is - the leaked client list of Clearview. Remember how they said it was “strictly law enforcement only”? Not so much. Clients include Walmart and Macy's as well as ICE and CBP. https://twitter.com/...
This was inevitable. Their database has probably already been breached as well. Always assume whatever data gathering we allow here, will basically be available to the most nefarious actors. https://twitter.com/...
Brilliant reporting by @donie. This is absolute madness. The irony of a private company which stores photos of us without permission and deleted photos from private accounts...having a data breach because it can't adequately protect them https://twitter.com/...
Hence I don't post my children's pictures in public domain, as I mentioned in my @TEDTalks . For our generation though, it's sadly a lost case. Sensetime also has billions of our pictures. #privacy #freedigitalcitizen https://twitter.com/...
“Our servers were never accessed” << who cares? the data was! breach communications require clarity ...though I wouldn't expect any less from a company that literally built it's business on violating ToS & user expectations 😖 #security #privacy #infoseclife https://twitter.com/..…
really starting to think that a technology that allows you to be identified by the cops or whatever company feels like using it, without limit or safeguard, using a biometric you can't hide, change, or avoid providing examples of, might be...bad https://twitter.com/...
This Clearview story is totally wild. This is exactly why we need Congress to get off their asses and #BanFacialRecognition, not just for law enforcement and government use, but for private and corporate use too WTF is Walmart, Bank of America, and Verizon doing with this tech? h…
“Clearview is strictly for law enforcement” ...but also 50 educational institutions, 200+ companies, security firms & private investigators. And police in 26 other countries. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
If this Clearview news horrifies you, just remember: There is still no federal law that regulates facial recognition or biometric privacy. https://twitter.com/...
I think the most terrifying thing about this is that the company's name wasn't known to the wider public until very recently. How many other companies are flying under the radar doing truly evil shit? https://twitter.com/...
The AFP told me via FOI it had no records concerning Clearview, and denied using it in multiple statements. Now Buzzfeed has documents showing its employees have run searches... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
A BuzzFeed News review of Clearview AI documents has revealed the company is working with more than 2,200 law enforcement agencies, companies, and individuals around the world. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
Clearview AI has been used by more than 2,200 entities. From governments to the private sector. From ICE to Interpol. From Australia to the UAE. Collectively, there have been nearly 500,000 searches. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
ICE running facial recog searches on Maryland drivers license database without specific oversight and few details while the Trump/Miller deportation machine extorts more protective states like New York for our DMV data. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...