UTS 31272: Project Management and Professional Ethics of Clearview AI

This report analyzes the ethical implications of Clearview AI, a company specializing in facial recognition software, within the context of project management and professional ethics. The report examines the ethical issues arising from Clearview AI's practices, such as the collection and use of billions of individuals' photographs without their consent, and the potential for misuse of the technology. It identifies key stakeholders, including shareholders and government entities, and analyzes their viewpoints on the ethical concerns. Furthermore, the report compares the ethical principles of the company with relevant international codes of conduct, such as those from ACS, ACM, and BCS. The report concludes by offering a critical assessment of Clearview AI's practices, arguing that the company does not adequately prioritize ethical considerations, particularly regarding privacy and democratic freedoms. The student's viewpoint, guided by consequentialism, is contrasted with those of stakeholders, highlighting the importance of balancing the benefits of technology with the protection of individual rights. The report ultimately emphasizes the need for stricter regulations and ethical guidelines to govern the development and deployment of facial recognition technologies.

Running Head: Project management and the professional 0
Project management and the professional

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Executive summary
Practising ethical theories and principles in business is important to ensure business
reputation and growth. But, some of the companies have key resources that hinders
individual’s privacy and that is strongly unaccepted by the principles of ethics. The company
Clearview’s unethical way of collecting photographs and other information of billions of
people is compared with industry codes of conducts to acknowledge impact of growing
technology on people, ethics, and law.

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Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Stakeholders ethics.................................................................................................................3
2.1 Ethical issues associated with using Clearview facial recognition software....................3
2.2 Stakeholders and their roles..............................................................................................5
2.2.1 Stakeholders...............................................................................................................5
2.2.2 Viewpoint of stakeholders in regards to ethical issues..............................................6
2.2.3 Ethical principle and viewpoint of stakeholders........................................................6
2.3 My view regarding ethical issues of Clearview company................................................7
2.4 Comparison of my viewpoint and stakeholder’s viewpoint.............................................8
3. International codes of conducts/ codes of ethics....................................................................8
3.1 Code of conducts..............................................................................................................8
3.2 Comparison of codes of conducts.....................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10

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1. Introduction
In this century of fast-growing technologies, humans are surrounded with innovative
technical things and services. It has been a perpetual topic of debates since decades about the
impact of swiftly changing technologies in human’s life. Technologies has become so
advanced in means of communication, automation, and surveillance that it has interfered
public privacy sector. Also, the rapid growth in technology has raised concern of ethical and
legal issues. Mainly privacy is a strong issue that come up with growing technology by
considering internet’s pervasive nature in daily lives of humans. Invasion of privacy by
technology companies like Clearview AI helps government and commercial operators to
ensure safety of people at risk by observing them. This is one of the few applications that can
be considered in positive impacts of the advanced technologies that hinders privacy.
Clearview AI company is a technology company of America that deals with face recognition
software. The software is used by government and commercial agencies to get information
that are scrapped from billions of photographs of people without their knowledge.
In this report ethical issues related to invasion of privacy by Clearview AI company has been
discussed. Governments and commercial groups using technologies that infringe rights of
citizen’s privacy is a strong ethical and legal issue. Ethical issues that lies with the company
is discussed while considering stakeholders ethics and code of conducts for software
industries.
2. Stakeholders ethics
2.1 Ethical issues associated with using Clearview facial recognition software
Personal privacy
The main ethical issue that comes with usage of Clearview facial recognition software is
privacy. As the software provides information of individuals by using its database containing

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billions of photographs of individuals which are scraped from different social media sites
without knowledge of that person (Cnet, 2020). The company is not only selling its software
to the government bodies but also selling it to many big companies and retail chains for
marketing purposes stand a concern of disappearing ethics in the technology business sector
(Hill, 2020). Without taking any consent or without giving any notice the company used
various sites of internet to gather information on billions of people. The post of individuals
has been used for advertising purposes. By using the software, government agencies and
commercial groups can have information of any person listed in the database of the software.
The software not only store photographs of several individuals but the caption, location and
content of photograph is also stored. Using information of peoples without their knowledge
and consent is considered as unethical business practice as it infringes people’s right of
privacy.
Discrimination
The software developed by Clearview company use database that contains scraped
photographs of millions of people. It is used by government agencies to help individual that
are in danger by monitoring them. Also, the software is used by the agencies to catch
criminals. But the software is not accurate every time, it is believed that the software
accuracy is not 100 percent and it sometimes fail to recognise face (Lohr, 2018). It is mostly
inaccurate in case of non-white, children, women, and minorities face’s recognition. The
accuracy of the software in the above listed cases may be about 65 percent, it means the
software is presenting errors up to 35 percent (Kuflindki, 2019). By considering the accuracy
level of the software it can be said that people of other ethnic groups can not be helped
through this software always. Also, people that are innocent might get in trouble because of
the government agencies using the software.

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Democratic freedom
The third ethical issue that comes with the usage of face recognition software is domestic
freedom. The principle of ethics that allows people to choose is violated by the software. As,
database used in the software, collects photographs from various sources such as social media
sites and official accounts without any consent or any other notice. This also raise an issue
that the company is spying on people (Lee, et al., 2016). However, the software was used to
identify child victim of sexual abuse (Dance & Hill, 2020). The software of facial recognition
was offered to try by Clearview leaders to people that are connected with the company.
Among those, one billionaire used the software to find out the person dating his daughter
(Heilweil, 2020). This particular use of the software is complete breach of domestic freedom
and can be considered unethical practice of leadership in the company.
2.2 Stakeholders and their roles
2.2.1 Stakeholders
Shareholders
Shareholders are the people that have some part of the company, and these are the people,
most affected by anything happening in the company. Hoan Ton-That is CEO and co-founder
of the technology company Clearview and acquire most of the company’s share. Except Hoan
Ton-That, Peter Thiel and Naval Ravikant claim equity in the company (J, 2020). As, both of
them invested more than $200,000 in the early face of the company makes them important
stakeholder to the Clearview. As they developed and sell their software to big companies for
marketing and promotion purposes, creates an ethical issue relating to hinderance in privacy
(Clearview, 2020). Also, the shareholders as mentioned above plays an important role in the
company in choosing their clients. Another investor of the company is Kirenaga partners, and
according to the small company, the software is an important crime-solving tool (Hill, 2020).
Government

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The software developed by Clearview company is used by government bodies and agencies
for several purposes, the main purposes are security and catching criminals. The software is
not only used by security agencies but also used in airports and borders. The government
bodies of several countries including Australian’s are customers to the company Clearview.
The company’s software gathers information by using algorithms of artificial intelligence to
scan geometry of individuals. Various government agencies use this software by combining it
with surveillance cameras to catch criminals that are risk to the society, finding missing
people, biometric scanning (Statt, 2020).
2.2.2 Viewpoint of stakeholders in regards to ethical issues
Shareholders view point: The software is used by various people, agencies, and companies
for different objectives. The software is made and employed with no intention of hindering
any one’s privacy, but for sake of good purposes. The government agencies are using it for
solving crimes and the other agencies is using it to helps people to find what they want. it is
also used to save kids and find the missing people. The software doe not scrap photos from
private account and if any person is not interested in sharing photos, the person can ask the
company to delete it by going to the website of the company. The company is also working
on accuracy of the software so that the clients can experience the software most useful.
Government view point: As the company is providing database of millions of people, that
helps in solving crimes, saving people from danger. The software with massive database is
used by government bodies with good intention and to serve its citizens with safety. The
software is used to catch criminals that are harmful to the society, thus it is helping the nation
and its citizens too. As the database is made without knowledge of individuals, new laws will
be made to ensure peoples privacy. If the software is making work easy for police
department, crime department and local councils, there is no harm using the software (Hill,
2020).

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2.2.3 Ethical principle and viewpoint of stakeholders
Shareholders: Viewpoint of company’s CEO regarding the issues follows deontology ethical
principle. According to this ethical principle, if the software is meeting its duty or completing
the reason it was made, then the software is ethically right and there is no role of its
consequences. As the CEO of the company is only considering helpfulness of the software to
several government agencies for good purposes without considering the consequences, it is
strongly fitting in deontology ethical principle.
Government: The government’s viewpoint regarding ethical issues created by the company
also follows deontology ethical principle. Even the government of Australia is not
considering the consequences of face recognition software usage in the country. The
government is ignoring the privacy issues, discrimination issues and democratic freedom
issues created by the software. The government is allowing the software for private
companies and local councils not considering the sensitivity of the data in the software
regarding privacy.
2.3 My view regarding ethical issues of Clearview company
In my view the company is not practising ethics, as they have hindering privacy of billions of
people by using their photographs, caption, and location in the face recognition software.
Privacy is serious issue that should be considered and some laws must be amended. The
software is being used by corporate companies also, and in the case of data, security can not
be promised. Any company should not be allowed to infringe any body’s right to democratic
freedom. Also, the government must ban selling of these sources or data to private
companies, as once the data is out, it can be copied and shared to several drives.
Discrimination is not ethical, as use of the software by security agencies may put any
innocent in trouble because if inaccuracy of the software. But the accuracy of the software
can be updated and solved (Clearview, 2019).

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My view follows the ethical principle of consequentialism. According to this ethical
principle, consequences is the key element to decide whether the act is ethically right or
wrong. In my view the software is doing great job by helping government agencies with their
work, but the process starts with hindering people’s privacy which in not acceptable.
2.4 Comparison of my viewpoint and stakeholder’s viewpoint
The views of different stakeholders are completely in favour of the company while ignoring
all other facts and consequences that lies in using the software. In the other hand I feel that all
the positive and negative impact of using software must be considered. The similarities
between my view and stakeholders view is that, we are appreciating the usefulness of the
software in activities of government agencies. The viewpoint is similar at a point because it is
the fact that the software is useful in defeating social problems and catching criminals but the
views are somewhere different because the stakeholders are connected to the company and
can only analyse the positive outcomes of the software unlike me. So, it can be said that my
point of view is more ethically right then stakeholders.
3. International codes of conducts/ codes of ethics
In this section of the report ACS, ACM and BCS codes of ethics and conducts are considered
to evaluate the employment of Clearview in different agencies and corporate industry.
3.1 Code of conducts
Codes of conducts are developed to guide computer professionals regarding ethical conducts.
In Australian Computer Society code of conduct, the primacy of public interest includes
private, personal, and sectional interest. According to the ACS industry codes, the usage of
software can be allowed to be employed until the company is performing professional (ACS,
2014) (Brunnstein & Berleur, 2011). Also, the code gives power to computer professionals to
innovate and invent new things (Oliver , 2000). As the Clearview face recognition software is

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a technology that helps government bodies of many countries to solve cases and it is been
used for good cause, ACS welcome the company to give services in the country. Association
of Computer Machinery includes various ethical principles that does not welcome the
company’s software of facial recognition to practice in the field. The ethical principle
includes; respect privacy and be fair and take actions not to discriminate. These are the
principles that does not support the employment of the software in a smooth way (ACM,
2018). In British Computer Society (BCS), public interest is considered important in case of
privacy, security, and wellbeing. So, this code of conduct partially supports the employment
of the software, as it equally considers privacy and security (BCS, 2019).
3.2 Comparison of codes of conducts
According to Australian Computer Society code of conduct, the standards of documents are
fundamental and one for all, it cannot be followed every time and levels as there are several
different circumstances involved. The society believes that some standards in the documents
due overlap and computer professional cannot always meet the expectations of ethical codes.
Thus, flexibility is offered to the computer professionals as it is hard to make several
documents for each type of circumstances (ACS, 2014).
According to Association of Computer Machines, computer professional must follow single
documented standards. It gives a list of ethical principles to be followed during practice of
computer technology. This code of ethics does not give importance to flexibility and detailed
regulations. It focuses strongly on ethical principles and listed fundamentals involved (ACM,
2018).
According to British Computer Society, the document standard should not be strongly strict
nor too much lenient. This code of conduct gives importance to privacy as well as security
and wellbeing. The most important key of the code is professionalism ethics that should be

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followed by computer professionals. The code gives limited flexibility so that most of the
people can work according to their interest but it somewhere tights the liberty so that the
professionals follow ethics.
All the three codes of conducts have similarity that they want ethical practice in terms of
privacy and professionalism. These codes have different parameters to judge whether an act
is ethical or not because of different experiences and research gained and practiced by the
industries. Also, all the industry codes have different believes and understanding toward
flexibility of documented standards to several circumstances (Burmeister, 2017).
Conclusion
The software developed by Clearview practices unethical behaviour, as it collects
photographs, captions, and other information for its database from internet including social
media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and twitter without consent of individuals and groups.
But the software is also used by government bodies to protect people, finding missing people
and catching criminals. It is helping several government agencies of different countries as
well as several private companies for marketing and security purposes. Most of the product
have some advantages and disadvantages but hindering privacy cannot be accepted.
Clearview also include extra risk as the government agencies are uploading several
photographs in that are sensitive in the database. By combining all facts and discussion
regarding usage of face recognition software with different industry codes it is found that
different codes provide levels of flexibility to the industry. So, concluding the above report it
can be said that the company should practice business ethics and should sell its products to
only government bodies that actually helps citizens with security.

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