Clearview AI Tests Cop Tool to Profile People Online
Original: Clearview AI Is Testing an AI Tool That Would Let Cops Unearth Your Life Online
Why This Matters
AI-assisted profiling tools signal a major shift in how law enforcement could conduct mass surveillance at scale.
Clearview AI has quietly developed and tested a prototype AI tool called InquiryIQ, designed to help law enforcement automatically build online profiles of suspects—including associates, aliases, and employers—using xAI's Grok model. The tool has not been released to customers.
Clearview AI, the facial recognition firm that became notorious in 2020 for scraping over 3 billion photos from the web, has built an unreleased prototype tool called InquiryIQ. Discovered by WIRED in code files served by Clearview's login page, the tool is designed to take information from a Clearview facial recognition search and automatically browse the web to assemble a detailed profile of a subject—including possible employers, aliases, associates, and physical characteristics. The tool's interface indicates that investigators can supply age, gender, and race to help the system make 'smarter decisions.' One of the AI models tested to power InquiryIQ comes from SpaceXAI—the Elon Musk company behind Grok, formed after SpaceX and xAI merged in February 2026. Grok has previously drawn scrutiny for racist and inflammatory outputs. Clearview CEO Amos Kyler told WIRED that InquiryIQ is strictly a prototype, has never been used by law enforcement, and is not planned for release in its current form. Kyler clarified that multiple AI model options in the interface were for internal engineering comparison only. Experts warn the tool could compress days of detective work into minutes, lowering the threshold for broad surveillance of individuals who might not otherwise be investigated.