Clearview AI, a facial recognition company that contracts with law enforcement agencies, reported that its customer list data was compromised by an "unauthorized" intruder.

While careful not to call the intrusion a hack, the company notified customers on Wednesday that the intruder stole user lists, the number of accounts associated with those users, and the number of searches the users performed.

The Daily Beast saw the notice, and Clearview AI assured customers that its servers and network had not been compromised, and that the vulnerability that the intruder exploited has since been fixed.

The company also states that the intruder did not access data related to law enforcement search history.

Clearview AI gained attention last month when the New York Times reported that the company scraped 3 billion images from the Internet for its facial recognition technology. The company's service was called into question by lawmakers and privacy advocates, and industry giants like Facebook and Twitter have directly ordered Clearview to stay away from their data.

The idea of a facial recognition database is one of concern before the possibility of a data breach. Now that its gatekeeper has admitted to legitimate privacy flaws, there is even more reason to question the complexity of this type of technology.

If the end of personal privacy is imminent, it is not clear that Clearview can be confident in its ability to take the helm. The company assured the Daily Beast that security is a "top priority," but the fact that a law enforcement agency would hire a company with a privacy record is in some ways a big deal.

Yes, the technology is a breakthrough in saving children who are victims of sexual abuse and solving crimes that might otherwise go cold. Facial recognition can be useful when conducted by inexplicable investigative agencies on select cases.

However, Clearview's security should be thoroughly scrutinized and tested before it begins scraping more images or opening its services to law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.