Your Face Belongs to Us is shortlisted for the 2024 Royal Society Science Book Prize, supported by the Trivedi Family Foundation
About the book
For fans of Bad Blood, a thrilling account of the tech start-up selling a radical new form of facial recognition.
When Kashmir Hill stumbled upon Clearview AI, a mysterious startup selling an app that claimed it could identify anyone using just a snapshot of their face, the implications were terrifying. The app could use the photo to find your name, your social media profiles, your friends and family – even your home address. But this was just the start of a story more shocking than she could have imagined.
Launched by computer engineer Hoan Ton-That and politician Richard Schwartz, and assisted by a cast of controversial characters on the alt-right, Clearview AI would quickly rise to the top, sharing its app with billionaires and law enforcement. In this riveting feat of reporting Hill weaves the story of Clearview AI with an exploration of how facial recognition technology is reshaping our lives, from its use by governments and companies like Google and Facebook (who decided it was too radical to release) to the consequences of racial and gender biases baked into the AI. Soon it could expand the reach of policing — as it has in China and Russia — and lead us into a dystopian future.
Your Face Belongs to Us is a gripping true story. It illuminates our tortured relationship with technology, the way it entertains us even as it exploits us, and it presents a powerful warning that in the absence of regulation, this technology will spell the end of our anonymity.
About the author
Kashmir Hill is a technology reporter at The New York Times, where her writing about privacy and tech pioneered the genre. Hill has worked and written for a number of publications including, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Gizmodo, Forbes and many others. Your Face Belongs to Us is her first book.
