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

iOS 19 Mock WWDC25 Feature

iOS 19 Expected to Run on These iPhones

Monday March 31, 2025 5:28 pm PDT by
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past. The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
watchOS 11 Thumb 2 1

Apple Releases watchOS 11.4 With Sleep Alarm Update

Tuesday April 1, 2025 10:34 am PDT by
Apple today released watchOS 11.4, the fourth major update to the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 11.4 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, all Apple Watch Ultra models, and the Apple Watch SE 2. watchOS 11.4 can be downloaded on a connected iPhone by opening up the Apple Watch app and going to General > Software Update. To install the new software,...
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4

Monday March 31, 2025 11:27 am PDT by
Apple today released new firmware updates for all AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 models. The new firmware is version 7E93, up from the 7B21 firmware that was installed on the AirPods Pro 2 and the 7B20 firmware available on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC. It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in the new firmware, but we'll update this article should we find ...
maxresdefault

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
Apple Card iPhone 16 Pro Feature

Visa and American Express Vying to Win Apple Card Deal in 'Fierce' Fight

Tuesday April 1, 2025 1:50 pm PDT by
Visa wants to pay Apple approximately $100 million to be the new payment network for the Apple Card, reports The Wall Street Journal. As of right now, the Apple Card is on the Mastercard payment network, but that is set to change because Apple is ending its partnership with Goldman Sachs. Both American Express and Visa are vying to replace Mastercard as Apple's card services provider, while...
iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iOS 18

Apple Seeds First Beta of iOS 18.5 to Developers

Wednesday April 2, 2025 10:11 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming just two days after Apple released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4. iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. We don't yet know what Apple is introducing in the iOS 18.5...

Top Rated Comments

TacoChowder Avatar
67 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
67 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
67 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
67 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
67 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
67 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)