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Remember the photo from your birthday dinner, the tagged picture from a cousin’s wedding, and the profile shot you forgot you ever posted? Any of these may already be sitting inside a search engine built for the police, where one uploaded image of a face can turn up matching photos of a person and links to where they appear online.
You never agreed to this, and you’ll likely never know if your face comes up in a search. Now, Mobile’s leaders must decide whether to keep paying for this surveillance technology, all the while the people who use it simply won’t explain how they do so.[1]
The Mobile City Council is considering a $67,000 annual renewal of Clearview AI, a facial recognition software company used by law enforcement agencies. As reported by NBC 15, the software would serve the Gulf Coast Technology Center, a regional law enforcement hub run by the city. The Mobile Police Department says that the GCTC represents more than 40 local, state, and federal agencies.
Blake Brown, public affairs manager for the Department of Public Safety, said that the matter couldn’t be discussed due to “operational security.” The department also refused to say how many searches officers run each year, how they verify matches, or whether searches are audited.
The renewal price also raises several questions. City invoice records show entries of $8,495 on February 15 and April 28, 2023, $8,495 on March 12, 2025, and $9,995 on March 5, 2026. A $67,000 annual renewal is nearly seven times the amount of the most recent invoice entry, and the city hasn’t explained why.
Investigators using the tool only need to upload a photo of a face to search against the company’s database, which it says contains more than 100 billion images collected from public websites and social media. Clearview says its technology is used by police after a crime has occurred, not for real-time surveillance.
A'Niya Robinson, policy director of the ACLU of Alabama, told NBC 15 that the technology could be used to monitor people even if they’re not suspected of any crime, and that people have no opportunity to consent to having their images analyzed.
The risks are not hypothetical. At least seven people have been falsely arrested after police relied on facial recognition matches. One was Robert Williams, a Michigan resident who spent 30 hours in Detroit police custody for a robbery he did not commit.
Oversight matters as much as accuracy; similar AI surveillance tools show how searches can be misused.
In Kentucky, a Shively police officer allegedly searched license plates tied to his child’s mother 2,048 times through Flock’s camera network, citing a drug investigation that she was never part of. He was only caught after the department switched on an audit tool months later.
Who can search is also a concern. Critics of Flock’s license plate networks, which cover nearly 70% of the U.S. population, say that the bigger problem is weak access control, with outside and federal agencies able to tap into local data. Mobile’s technology center hosts more than 40 agencies, and the city hasn’t said who can run Clearview searches.
However, Alabama does have a safeguard. In 2022, a law sponsored by State Senator Arthur Orr prohibited police departments from relying solely on facial recognition before making an arrest. A match must be backed by other lawfully obtained evidence. Without knowing how Mobile police verify matches, it’s difficult to judge how that rule is applied here.
Clearview’s database isn’t limited to people accused of crimes. Anyone with photos online, whether posted by themselves or tagged by friends, can end up in a database like Clearview’s. You get no notice when your face is searched and no chance to see or challenge the results.
And your face is only one piece of the puzzle. A nonprofit called CivAI recently demonstrated to lawmakers how an AI tool can build a detailed dossier on a stranger using data anyone can buy. This includes real photos, locations, and sensitive visits. Combined with a face search, a single photo could lead to far more.
Surveillance is also spreading beyond policing. California recently passed limits on how employers use AI to monitor workers, including a ban on tools that read employees’ emotional states. In 2022, an ACLU settlement gave Illinois residents a way to block their faces from Clearview search results.
Without clear legal protection, it’s up to users to reduce their exposure. Here are some steps you could take:
Mobile is weighing spending $67,000 on a tool that can search the faces of almost anyone with an online presence. Yet the department that uses it won’t say how often it runs searches, how it checks the results, or whether anyone audits its use.
While the department may cite operational security as a reason for keeping the details private, critics argue that this could endanger residents’ rights to privacy and security. In the absence of clear legal protections, it’s up to you to reduce your exposure. Keep your accounts private, strip metadata from the images you post online, and consider using third-party protection tools like a data removal service.
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