A man taking a selfie is silhouetted against the overcast sky along the Chicago skyline Wednesday, July 21, 2021, in Chicago. | Shafkat Anowar/AP Pho

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2021-09-26 03:30:03

A man taking a selfie is silhouetted against the overcast sky along the Chicago skyline Wednesday, July 21, 2021, in Chicago. | Shafkat Anowar/AP Photo

Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition company that scrapes public images from social media to aid law enforcement probes, has subpoenaed internal documents from some of the groups that first exposed its activities.

The firm served subpoenas in August to civil society coalition Open The Government, its policy analyst Freddy Martinez and the police accountability nonprofit that he’d previously founded, Lucy Parsons Labs — demanding any correspondence they’d had with journalists about Clearview and its leaders, as well as information they’d uncovered about the company and its founders in public records requests, over the last four years.

The subpoenas, obtained by POLITICO, could draw the groups into lengthy court battles and, they argue, dissuade others from taking on Clearview or other companies working on potentially problematic technologies.