Clearview AI has been largely secretive since it was founded two years ago, by a self-taught engineer and entrepreneur.

The Star has made several requests for comment from the New York-based company since learning Canadian law-enforcement agencies were among those around the world using its facial-recognition database.

It’s worth noting that facial-recognition technology, generally, has technical limitations. It’s more accurate identifying Caucasian faces, than it is with Black and Asian faces.

Here's what we know about Clearview AI, who is behind it — and how the technology works:

How does facial-recognition work?

Essentially, facial-recognition scans for faces and establishes noticeable “landmarks.” Then, it “measures” the face, mapping out the relative distance between features. The algorithm would then spit out a unique “faceprint,” unique to each individual.

Once an algorithm has learned a face, it scans for the closest matching faceprints.

When a database has been established, facial-recognition technology can distinguishbetween people and pull photos that carry the same faceprint.

The caveat is the technology is inconsistent. The algorithms falsely identified African-American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more than Caucasian faces, researchers for the National Institute of Standards and Technology found, according to the New York Times.

The systems falsely identified African-American and Asian faces 10 times to 100 times more than Caucasian faces. Among a database of photos used by law enforcement agencies in the United States, the highest error rates came in identifying Native Americans, the study found.

The technology also had more difficulty identifying women than men. And it falsely identified older adults up to 10 times more than middle-aged adults.

The new U.S. study found that the kind of facial matching algorithms used in law enforcement had the highest error rates for African-American females, the Times reported.

What is Clearview AI?

It’s a database that claims to have more than three billion images “scraped” from millions of websites, including Facebook and YouTube.

For the sake of comparison, the FBI has a database of more than 640 million photos of faces.

The idea is that a law-enforcement official can put a photo of a suspect into the database and use its facial-recognition technology to create matches with images scraped from sites across the Internet.

Scraping images from a website such as Facebook contravenes most terms of service, which generally prohibit a third-party from accessing the data. Some companies have specifically banned using data … for facial-recognition.

In tests of Clearview AI, people found photos of themselves that they were not aware existed. A New York Times investigation last month showed that images remain on the platform, even if you’ve deleted them from your social media accounts.

CNN reported earlier this month that the platform seems to have scraped photos that exist even on private Instagram accounts.

What is ‘scraping’?

Web scraping involves combing through and saving … images or text on a webpage.

It is usually done through a bot or automated process, but you can do it manually (think copy and paste).

Scraping means that the data is being copied and saved externally by a third party accessing a website or social media platform.

Whether the process is legal depends on where you live in the world, but it typically contravenes the terms of service laid out by … platforms.

What are Canada’s privacy laws?

Canada’s Privacy Act and PIPEDA, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, apply to identifiable information about individuals. Essentially, this can be any information that could be traced back to you directly.

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Last week, B.C. privacy commissioner Michael McEvoy said “I think it is very questionable whether it would conform with Canadian law,” and questioned whether Clearview AI’s database meets Canada’s framework for collecting personal information.

Businesses must obtain individuals’ consent before collecting personal information, with few exceptions. And, if personal information is used for a purpose other than the one for which it was originally collected, consent must be obtained again.

The Privacy Act covers the way the government uses your information.

PIPEDA applies to businesses that collect or disclose personal information about you as a consumer.

Any business that operates in Canada is subject to PIPEDA, even if they’re based internationally.

Is Clearview legal?

The way that the data was collected has raised red flags for privacy regluators, who have opened an investigation into the company’s practices.

The RCMP’s use of the technology is also being investigated federally by Canada’s privacy commissioners.

A class-action lawsuit is pending against the company in the U.S. The lawsuit, filed in Illinois, alleges an “insidious encroachment on an individual’s liberty.” The company has received cease-and-desist letters from Facebook and YouTube.

Who is Clearview founder, Hoan Ton-That?

Before launching Clearview, Ton-That was responsible for an iPhone game and an app that pasted Donald Trump’s hair onto photos.

After moving to the U.S. from Australia, he developed a host of apps for iPhone and Facebook. In 2009, he was responsible for a site that allowed people to share links to videos with all of their messaging contacts. He shut down the site after controversy that the site was a phishing scam.

A New York Times profile of Ton-That in January noted that interest in Clearview AI picked up after the company rebranded itself; it was previously called Smartchekr.

It attracted the attention of Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist who sits on the board at Facebook. Thiel contributed $200,000 in the very early days of the company that would become Clearview.

Other people who have worked for, or continue to work for, Clearview have been advisers to prominent people, such as Rudy Giliani, Geroge W. Bush and other politicians.

Who is using Clearview AI?

At least 20 police services across Canada have tested the technology, either because they’ve licensed it, as is the case with the RCMP, or because officers signed up to try it for free — without the apparent knowledge or consent of police leaders.

While Ton-That has said the platform was strictly to be used by law enforcement, documents obtained by BuzzFeed and shared exclusively with the Star show private entities have also signed up to test trial versions of the tool, including Rexall and the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Both have stopped using the technology.

Canada is the second largest market outside of the U.S., according to the data obtained by Buzzfeed.

How common is facial-recognition?

In a word: very.

Before information became public about the use of Clearview by Canadian law enforcement, Toronto police revealed last year that they were using facial-recognition technology to compare images of suspects in a database of mugshots.

Outside law enforcement, the technology is an incredibly common feature of digital products. For example, the iPhone X features Face ID, where users can use their face to unlock their phone. On Facebook, square boxes identifying where a face is in a photo appear and allow you to tag the person featured. In some countries, Facebook will suggest you tag the friend it recognizes.

Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook all offer “lenses,” filters that a user can add over the top of photos of themselves to modify their face or add effects, such as dog ears, wrinkles, or to smooth out skin and brighten eyes.

These effects are only possible with facial-recognition software.