Israel is increasingly relying on facial recognition technology in the occupied West Bank to track Palestinians and restrict them from passing through key checkpoints, a sign of how surveillance has become, according to a new report. Artificial intelligence-based surveillance can be used against an ethnic group.
At high fenced checkpoints in Hebron, Palestinians stand in front of facial recognition cameras before being allowed to cross. When their faces are scanned, the software – called Red Wolf – uses a color-coding system of green, yellow and red to guide soldiers on whether to release the person, stopping them to let them go. interrogate or arrest them, according to the report. report by Amnesty International. When the technology fails to identify someone, soldiers train the system by adding their personal information to a database.
Israel has long restriction freedom of movement for Palestinians, but technological advances are giving the government powerful new tools. It’s the latest example of spread globally of mass surveillance systems, which rely on AI to learn to identify people’s faces based on large repositories of images.
In Hebron and East Jerusalem, the technology is focused almost exclusively on Palestinians, Amnesty reports, marking a new way to automate control of the internal boundaries separating the two nations. . Palestinian and Israeli life. Amnesty calls the process “automatic racism.” Israel has strongly denied that it operates a racist regime.
“These databases and tools only record Palestinian data,” the report said, based on the accounts of Israeli and Palestinian ex-soldiers living in the monitored areas, as well as other Palestinians. field visit to observe the use of technology in the affected territories.
The Israel Defense Forces, which play a central role in the occupied territories in the West Bank, said in a statement that it carries out “necessary intelligence and security operations, while making worthy efforts.” to minimize harm to the day-to-day functioning of the Palestinian people.”
Regarding facial recognition, it added, “Of course, we can’t talk about operational and intelligence capabilities.”
It is rare for the government to use facial recognition technology to explicitly target an ethnic group. In China, companies have created algorithms try to identify the minority as they passed by the popular cameras of the country. The Chinese government has also used facial recognition checkpoint to control and monitor the movements of the Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities.
Israeli use of facial recognition at built checkpoints on other monitoring systems implemented in the past. Since the protests in East Jerusalem the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah After Palestinian families were deported in 2021, the presence of cameras increased in the area, most likely supporting the Israeli government’s video surveillance system with facial recognition capabilities known as facial recognition. Mabat 2000, according to Amnesty.
During a walk through the area, Amnesty researchers reported finding one to two cameras every 15 feet. Some are made by Hikvision, a Chinese surveillance camera manufacturer, and others by TKH Security, a Dutch manufacturer.
TKH Security declined to comment. Hikvision did not respond to a request for comment.
Government forces also use cameras on their phones. Israeli authorities have a facial recognition app, Blue wolfto identify Palestinians, according to Breaking the Silence, an organization that supports Amnesty and collects testimonies from Israeli soldiers who worked in the occupied territories.
Soldiers use this app to take pictures of Palestinians on the street or during home raids to register them in a central database and check if they are wanted or questioned, according to Amnesty’s 82-page report and testimonials from Breaking the Silence. The use of Blue Wolf was previously reported by washington articles.
The surveillance is in part an effort to reduce violence against Israelis. This year, Palestinian attackers killed 19 Israelis. At least 100 Palestinians have been killed this year by Israeli security forces, many in gun battles that erupted during military operations to capture Palestinian gunmen. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 after capturing it from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli war that year.
Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist in Hebron, a West Bank city where violence is frequent, said residents are under constant surveillance. He, his friends and family are regularly stopped by soldiers to take pictures with the Blue Wolf app. Surveillance cameras line the streets and drones often fly overhead.
Amro said the Israeli military had become so reliant on automated systems that the crossing of checkpoints would be stopped in the event of a technical problem.
“Everything is tracked. My whole life is tracked. I don’t have any privacy,” he said. “I feel like they’re watching me everywhere I go.”
Amro said Palestinians are angry that surveillance tools are never likely to be used to identify crimes committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.
Ori Givati, a former Israeli tank commander who is now the advocacy director of Breaking the Silence, said the new surveillance systems started to be put into use around 2020. The technology has already enabled the Israeli government moves toward an automatic occupation, he said. Palestine for constant surveillance and surveillance.
Facial recognition systems are “not only an invasion of privacy, but a powerful tool for control,” he said.
