Israel/OPT: Israeli authorities are using facial recognition technology to entrench apartheid
May 2,
2023
The Israeli authorities are using an experimental
facial recognition system known as Red Wolf to track Palestinians and automate
harsh restrictions on their freedom of movement, Amnesty International said
today. In a new report, Automated Apartheid,
the organization documents how Red Wolf is part of an ever-growing surveillance
network which is entrenching the Israeli government’s control over
Palestinians, and which helps to maintain Israel’s system of apartheid. Red
Wolf is deployed at military checkpoints in the city of Hebron in the occupied
West Bank, where it scans Palestinians’ faces and adds them to vast
surveillance databases without their consent.
Amnesty International also documented how Israel’s use
of facial recognition technology against Palestinians in occupied East
Jerusalem has increased, especially in the wake of protests and in the areas
around illegal settlements. In both Hebron and occupied East Jerusalem, facial
recognition technology supports a dense network of Closed-Circuit Television
(CCTV) cameras to keep Palestinians under near-constant observation. Automated Apartheid shows
how this surveillance is part of a deliberate attempt by Israeli authorities to
create a hostile and coercive environment for Palestinians, with the aim of
minimizing their presence in strategic areas.
“The Israeli authorities are using sophisticated
surveillance tools to supercharge segregation and automate apartheid against
Palestinians. In the H2 area of Hebron, we documented how a new facial
recognition system called Red Wolf is reinforcing draconian restrictions on
Palestinians’ freedom of movement, using illegitimately acquired biometric data
to monitor and control Palestinians’ movements around the city,” said Agnès
Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
“Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem and
Hebron told us how omnipresent surveillance cameras have invaded their privacy,
repressed activism, eroded social life, and left them feeling constantly
exposed. In addition to the constant threat of excessive physical force and
arbitrary arrest, Palestinians must now contend with the risk of being tracked
by an algorithm, or barred from entering their own neighbourhoods based on
information stored in discriminatory surveillance databases. This is the
latest illustration of why facial recognition technology, when used for
surveillance, is incompatible with human rights.”
Amnesty International is calling on Israeli
authorities to end the mass and targeted surveillance of Palestinians and lift
the arbitrary restrictions they have imposed on Palestinians’ freedom of
movement across the OPT, as necessary steps towards dismantling apartheid.
Amnesty International is also calling for a
global ban on the development, sale and use of facial recognition technology
for surveillance purposes. The organization has recently documented human
rights risks linked to facial recognition technology in India and
the US, as part of
its Ban the Scan campaign.
Automated Apartheid focuses
on Hebron and East Jerusalem, the only cities in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories with Israeli settlements inside their bounds. The report is based
on evidence gathered during 2022 field research, including interviews with
Palestinian residents; analysis of open-source material; and testimony from
current and former Israeli military personnel. This testimony was provided by
the Israeli organization Breaking the Silence,
and was used to corroborate Amnesty International’s findings on how
Israel’s facial recognition systems operate.
Red Wolf
Under a 1997 agreement between Israeli authorities and
the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hebron was divided into two sections,
known as H1 and H2. H1, which constitutes 80% of the city, is administered by
the Palestinian authorities, while Israel maintains full control over H2, which
includes the Old City. Some 33,000 Palestinians live in H2, along with around
800 Israeli settlers who reside illegally across at least seven settlement
enclaves.
Palestinian residents of H2 are subjected to draconian
movement restrictions. They are barred from accessing certain roads, which are
open only to Israeli settlers, and a network of military checkpoints and other
obstructions severely impedes their daily lives. Israeli settlers in Hebron
travel on different roads to Palestinians, and are not required to use
checkpoints.
Automated Apartheid reveals
the existence of a previously unreported Israeli military facial recognition
system called Red Wolf, which is deployed at checkpoints in Hebron.
There is strong evidence to suggest that Red Wolf is
linked with two other military-run surveillance systems, Wolf Pack and Blue
Wolf. Wolf Pack is a vast database containing all available information
on Palestinians from the OPT, including where they live, who their family members
are, and whether they are wanted for questioning by Israeli authorities. Blue
Wolf is an app which Israeli forces can access via smartphones and tablets, and
which can instantly pull up the information stored in the Wolf Pack database.
When a Palestinian goes through a checkpoint where Red
Wolf is operating, their face is scanned, without their knowledge or consent,
and compared with biometric entries in
databases which exclusively contain information about
Palestinians. Red Wolf uses this data to determine whether an individual can
pass a checkpoint, and automatically biometrically enrols any new face it
scans. If no entry exists for an individual, they will be denied
passage. Red Wolf could also deny entry based on other information stored
on Palestinian profiles, for example if an individual is wanted for questioning
or arrest.
Red Wolf expands its database of Palestinian faces
over time. In testimony given to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli commander
stationed in Hebron said that soldiers are tasked with training and optimizing
Red Wolf’s facial recognition algorithm so it can start recognizing faces
without human intervention.
Amnesty International even documented, through the
testimony provided by military personnel, how the surveillance of Palestinians
has become gamified. For example, two soldiers stationed in Hebron in 2020 said
the Blue Wolf app generates rankings based on the number of Palestinians
registered – with Israeli commanders providing prizes for the battalion with
the highest score. In this way, Israeli soldiers are incentivized to keep
Palestinians under constant observation.
Cameras everywhere
Amnesty International also documented how Israel’s
AI-powered facial recognition systems are supported by a vast physical
infrastructure of surveillance hardware.
Hebron has been described by the Israeli military as a
“smart city”. The reality is streets full of surveillance cameras, which are
mounted on the sides of buildings, lampposts, surveillance towers and rooftops,
compounding the already drastic segregation that exists in Hebron. For
Palestinians, omnipresent surveillance has exacerbated the sense that some
areas of H2 are off-limits for them – even areas which are just metres away
from their homes.
The Tel Rumeida neighbourhood is close to the
heavily-equipped Checkpoint 56, which is mounted with at least 24 audio-visual
surveillance devices and other sensors. Eyad, a resident of Tel Rumeida,
described how the installation of Checkpoint 56 on the once-thriving Shuhada
Street, combined with a heavy military presence and nearly 30 years of movement
restrictions and forced closures of Palestinian businesses, has “killed all
forms of social life”.
Eyad also described how Israeli soldiers seem to rely
on the facial recognition system, which Amnesty International identified as Red
Wolf, to bar residents from returning to their homes:
“They [Israeli soldiers] can tell you that your name
is not in the database, as simple as that, and then you’re not allowed to pass
through [to] your house.”
Old City, New Tech
In occupied East Jerusalem, Israel operates a network
of thousands of CCTV cameras across the Old City, known as Mabat 2000. Since
2017, Israeli authorities have been upgrading this system to enhance its facial
recognition capabilities and give themselves unprecedented powers of
surveillance.
Amnesty International mapped CCTV cameras across an
area of 10 square-kilometres in occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City
and Sheikh Jarrah, and found the presence of one to two CCTV cameras every five
metres.
Israeli authorities have targeted sites of cultural
and political significance with new surveillance tools, such as the Damascus
Gate entrance to the Old City, which has long been a place for Palestinians to
meet and hold protests.
The impact of these numerous cameras is acutely felt
by Palestinians, as one resident, Neda, explained:
“I’m being watched the whole time… it gives me a
really bad feeling everywhere in the street. Every time I see a camera, I feel
anxious. Like you are always being treated as if you are a target.”
This mass surveillance violates the rights to privacy,
equality and non-discrimination. It also has a chilling effect on the rights to
freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly by deterring
Palestinians from protesting and exacerbating a climate of fear and repression.
As one Palestinian journalist told Amnesty
International:
“Those who demonstrate know that, even if they don’t
get detained on the spot, their faces will be captured by the cameras and they
can be arrested later.”
In the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighbourhoods, the
number of CCTV cameras increased significantly in the wake of 2021 protests
against the forced eviction of Palestinian families to make way for
settlers.
Amnesty International also documented how the continued
expansion of surveillance in occupied East Jerusalem, an illegally annexed
city, digitally cements Israel’s domain of control, and helps advance the
unlawful security objectives of illegal settlers. Not only does surveillance
deter protests against settlement expansion, but Israeli authorities and
settlers have also installed additional surveillance infrastructure around
areas near illegal settlements.
Suppliers of surveillance
Amnesty International cannot say with certainty which
companies are providing Israeli authorities with facial recognition software.
However, researchers identified the vendors of several cameras they found in
occupied East Jerusalem. They documented high-resolution CCTV cameras made by
the Chinese company Hikvision installed in residential areas and mounted to
military infrastructure; some of these models, according to Hikvision’s own
marketing, can plug into external facial recognition software. Amnesty
International also identified cameras made by a Dutch company called TKH Security,
in public spaces and attached to police infrastructure.
Amnesty International wrote to both companies
expressing concerns about the risk of their products being used with the Mabat
2000 system to conduct facial recognition targeted at Palestinians and
connected to human rights abuses. Amnesty International also requested
information about the companies’ due diligence processes. Both companies were
unable to describe how they had fulfilled, or were currently fulfilling, their
human rights responsibilities for these high-risk sales.
According to TKH Security’s website, in 2017 an
Israeli company called Mal-Tech Technological Solutions (Mal-Tech) became its
official distributor for the Israeli market. In its response to Amnesty
International, TKH Security said it “has not done any business with Mal-Tech in
the past few years”, and said it does not currently have a direct business
relationship with Israeli security forces. TKH Security did not respond to
Amnesty International’s further requests for clarification. Hikvision did not
respond to any of Amnesty International’s questions.
“Hikvision and TKH Security must commit to ensuring
that their technologies are not being used to maintain or further entrench
Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians,” said Agnès Callamard
“They must stop supplying any technologies which are
used by Israeli authorities to maintain illegal settlements – which are war
crimes under international law – and ensure they only sell to human
rights-compliant customers.”
Background
In 2022, Amnesty International released a report documenting
how Israel enforces an institutionalized system of oppression and domination
against Palestinians which amounts to apartheid under international law. This
system is imposed against Palestinians wherever Israel has control over their
rights and is maintained by violations which constitute apartheid as a crime
against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.
Under international human rights law, state interference
with the right to privacy must be a demonstrably necessary and proportionate
means of addressing a legitimate aim. Israel’s use of surveillance against
Palestinians fails to meet these criteria; it also helps to restrict freedom of
movement in the context of prolonged occupation, illegal settlement and
annexation; entrenches the segregation and fragmentation of the Palestinian
people; and ultimately helps to maintain Israel’s apartheid system.
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