To sell to law enforcement agencies, among others.
(First news brief in this article:)
User selfies, plus I’m sure photos of other people that never even signed up.
Historical: https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/29/in_brief_ai/ and https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/12/in_brief_ai/
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/clearview-ai/company_financials
I’m almost at a loss for words…but I can still think of a couple I would like to direct to their CEO.
Seems like the advice to not use social media is still relevant but not quite enough (as photos can end up online even without your consent or knowledge via friends or family). And of course that doesn’t excuse the company behavior in the slightest, this isnt a case of blaming the victims.
We (USA) will have to figure out what we are going to do with digital privacy, though that means agreeing at levels of government that currently don’t like to do much together.
I would be very surprised if this didn’t happen. Isn’t is virtually impossible for it to not happen? Apart from this ‘incident’ I’m sure there are hundreds of similar events already, but unknown to the public.
Sadly, there is no way to stop this kind of action or posting of pictures. I do not use social media, but I have seen old high school and university yearbooks of mine turn up on the Internet. Someone scanned them in, because those were made long before there was an Internet. So much for “consent.”
Good news for the EU: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/10/the-european-parliament-voted-to-ban-remote-biometric-surveillance.html
Don’t be too optimistic. This is only the parliament. As soon as the EU commission starts the law preparation and the lobby groups get their input the number of exceptions are uncountable. It starts with face recognition for terrorist and child abusers faces only 
Maybe I should open a new Facebook account and post for my picture, a photograph of Alfred E. Neuman. So when the police come looking for me, they’ll arrest the guy from the cover of Mad magazine. Meanwhile, no one will go looking for a photograph of me since they will already have one on file.
If they use my high-school picture that won’t help anyone to identify me either. I weigh fifty pounds more now and am forty years older now. When they show me my highschool picture and ask if I’ve seen this guy, I’ll point and say “he went that way”.