NASA Caught Purchasing Controversial AI Surveillance Software

As AI startups infest every aspect of life as we know it with unsolicited slop and shady surveillance, not even the final frontier is safe.

According to documents obtained by 404 Media, NASA sent out a purchase order for a one-year license to use Clearview AI, an extremely controversial tech startup which has previously been accused of fostering a privacy "nightmare scenario."

Clearview's value proposition is basically to scrape billions of photos from Facebook, Google, and Twitter — without anybody's consent — and then charge cops to use all that private data to help identify "suspects." (As if that wasn't bad enough, its flawed system has also landed at least one innocent man in jail.)

Since the New York Times uncovered Clearview's existence in 2020, the surveillance startup has racked up thousands of private security companies and law enforcement agencies as clients. These range from loss prevention efforts at Macy's and Las Vegas Sands to state agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol.)

We know about those clients, by the way, because of a data breach in Clearview's internal security, which allowed outside actors to get ahold of the list, which was promptly leaked to the Daily Beast. That's a red flag for a private company holding billions of photos for Person-of-Interest-style crimefighting, to say the least.

Having courted over 2,200 law enforcement partners and counting with free trials, it's probably no surprise that government enforcement agencies would take them up on the offer. But why NASA needs to get their hands on the tech is a glaring mystery.

Clearview "is the largest known public only database of its kind and provides high level security and auditing functions better than other platforms," NASA replied to 404's inquiry. "Clearview AI is the only technology platform available in the U.S. that offers its unique combination of web crawling and facial recognition capabilities while being in full compliance with data privacy laws."

That nebulous statement doesn't really uncover the "why," though NASA had earlier told 404 that the license was purchased on behalf of its Office of Inspector General (OIG), an oversight agency which reports to Congress.

How true that is remains to be seen. It's entirely possible that NASA bought the license as a trial run for its on-site security. The space agency holds details of its security efforts very close to its chest, though we know they're pretty serious about keeping their facilities locked down. The Kennedy Space Center, for example, has contracted a team of mercenaries to run 24/7 SWAT operations in and around the spaceport, on top of its regular armed contingent.

A more far-fetched theory is that NASA's looking to revive its Astronaut Behavior Tracking program, a public-private project to redesign military tech to monitor astronaut crews. It's unlikely, given that Clearview's whole thing is mass surveillance as opposed to nitty-gritty biometric tracking, though we'd be remiss not to mention a 2024 white paper declaring NASA's interest in astronaut-monitoring AI.

Regardless of how NASA deploys the software, it's yet another feather in the cap for Clearview, which recently came under control of GOP megadonor Hal Lambert and Manhattan Institute-vizier Richard Schwartz. Whether or not their dystopian tech makes it into space is anyone's guess.

More on AI surveillance: Police Use of Facial Recognition Backfires Spectacularly When It Renders Them Unable to Convict Alleged Murderer

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