# Clearview AI A controversial facial recognition company that scraped billions of photos from social media to build a surveillance database used by law enforcement agencies including the FBI and ICE. [[Peter Thiel]] was an early investor. ## Thiel's Surveillance Portfolio Clearview represents the second major surveillance company in Thiel's investment portfolio alongside [[Palantir]]. While Palantir provides data analytics and intelligence fusion for government agencies, Clearview provides the raw biometric identification layer. Together they represent a comprehensive surveillance stack: Clearview identifies *who* someone is, Palantir maps *what they do and who they know*. ## Co-Investors Thiel's co-investors in Clearview are notable: - **[[David Scalzo]]** — Venture capitalist - **[[Hal Lambert]]** — Texas-based investor who runs an ETF with the ticker symbol "MAGA," designed to track companies aligned with Republican politics The investor base signals that Clearview was understood from inception as a politically aligned venture, not just a neutral technology company. ## Government Use & Controversy Clearview AI has been used by over 600 law enforcement agencies. It has faced multiple lawsuits over privacy violations and was banned in several countries (Australia, UK, France, Italy). Despite this, US government agencies continued using it — creating the same pattern seen with Palantir: controversy in public, contracts in private. ## Conflict of Interest Thiel funding both Palantir and Clearview while his network controls key government positions (particularly those overseeing immigration enforcement via ICE) creates a vertically integrated surveillance-to-policy pipeline. [[Stephen Miller]]'s immigration enforcement agenda at ICE directly benefits both companies. ## See Also - [[Peter Thiel]] - [[Palantir]] - [[Airship AI]] — Complementary surveillance layer (video/sensor analytics at the border) - [[Flock Safety]] — Complementary surveillance layer (license plate recognition) - [[Skydio]] — Complementary surveillance layer (autonomous drone surveillance) - [[Defense Tech Conflicts of Interest]] - [[Stephen Miller]] - [[DOGE-Palantir Nexus]]