Apple Disables Clearview AI's Developer Account After Violating Enterprise Certificate Rules

Apple has disabled the developer account of New York City-based facial recognition startup Clearview AI and provided the company with 14 days to respond for violating the rules of its enterprise program, according to BuzzFeed News.

As part of the program, Apple issues enterprise certificates to large organizations to deploy select apps to their employees for internal use only, but the report claims that Clearview AI was distributing its facial recognition app to more than 2,200 public and private entities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, Macy's, Walmart, and the NBA. This scheme allowed customers to download the app outside of the App Store by installing the certificate on their device.

apple enterprise dev program
Clearview AI's website says that it "searches the open web" for "publicly available images," helping law enforcement agencies to "identify perpetrators and victims of crimes" and to "exonerate the innocent."

Earlier this week, Clearview AI revealed that an intruder "gained unauthorized access" to its list of clients, according to The Daily Beast. The New York Times profiled the controversial company last month, claiming it has "a database of more than three billion images" scraped from platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

Apple took similar action against Facebook and Google last year after each company was found to be using enterprise certificates to distribute consumer-facing apps, but the certificates were later restored, presumably after Facebook and Google agreed to use them strictly for internal-use apps only as required.

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

TacoChowder Avatar
63 months ago

There we go again, he who do not want to be regulated, regulates. Enforce Apple to use USB-C or revoke saleslicense...
Well, this is within the rules of their platform, them enforcing those rules is absolutely fine. And also **** facial recognition.
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
I7guy Avatar
63 months ago

And it is within the rules of a country to enforce Apple to comply, that’s absolutely fine as well.
Private enterprise regulating private enterprise via let your customers dollars do the talking is good. Government micro-regulating private industry is a recipe for disaster.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mariusignorello Avatar
63 months ago

And it is within the rules of a country to enforce Apple to comply, that’s absolutely fine as well.
A country’s government is asking a technology company to change the charging port on their devices on the grounds that it makes things more universal...how about no. That’s absolutely ridiculous.

Next they’ll ask for all operating system UIs to be the same and all code bases to be the same. Do you see where this is going?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coolfactor Avatar
63 months ago
These comments are getting off topic. This has nothing to do with Apple abusing their position.

Clearview AI knowingly violated their developer agreement, and Apple has taken action to enforce the rules. Perfectly valid response.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PickUrPoison Avatar
63 months ago

There we go again, he who do not want to be regulated, regulates. Enforce Apple to use USB-C or revoke saleslicense...
Apple allows developers to use enterprise certificates only to distribute apps to employees.

Using those certs to bypass the App Store is not allowed under the terms of the developer license. They will, and should be, revoked.

This article has nothing to do with USB-C.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
480951 Avatar
63 months ago
Clearview has previously repeatedly stated that it’s services are only for use by law enforcement. Thanks to the journalists at Buzzfeed news, it turns out they were lying and companies like Walmart and Macy’s were also using it too.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/clearview-ai-fbi-ice-global-law-enforcement
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)