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Israel is increasingly relying on facial recognition in the occupied West Bank to track Palestinians and restrict their passage through key checkpoints, according to a new report, in a sign of how surveillance powered by artificial intelligence can be used against ethnic groups.
At high-fence checkpoints in Hebron, Palestinians stand in front of facial recognition cameras before being allowed to cross. When their faces are scanned, the software – known as Red Wolf – uses a green, yellow and red color-coding system to guide soldiers whether to let the person go, stop for questioning or detain them, according to a report by Amnesty International. When technology fails to identify people, soldiers train the system by adding personal information to the database.
Israel has long restricted Palestinians’ freedom of movement, but technological advances have given them powerful new tools. This is the latest example of the global spread of mass surveillance systems, which rely on AI to learn to recognize people’s faces based on large image stores.
In Hebron and East Jerusalem, the technology is almost entirely focused on Palestinians, according to Amnesty’s report, signaling a new way to automate interior border control that separates the lives of Palestinians and Israelis. Amnesty called the process “automatic apartheid.” Israel has strongly denied that it operates an apartheid regime.
“These databases and tools specifically record the data of Palestinians,” the report said, based on the accounts of Israeli and Palestinian ex-soldiers living in the monitored areas, as well as field visits to observe the use of the technology in affected areas.
The Israel Defense Forces, which play a major role in the occupied territories of the West Bank, said in a statement that they were conducting “necessary security and intelligence operations, while making significant efforts to reduce harm to the routine activities of the Palestinian population.”
On facial recognition, he added, “Of course, we cannot refer to operational and intelligence capabilities.”
The government is using facial recognition technology to clearly target rare single ethnic groups. In China, companies have created algorithms that seek to identify minorities when they pass cameras all over the country. The Chinese government also uses facial recognition checkpoints to control and track the movements of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities.
Israel’s use of facial recognition at checkpoints builds on other surveillance systems deployed in recent years. Since protests in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah over the eviction of Palestinian families in 2021, the presence of cameras has increased in the area, most likely to support the Israeli government’s facial recognition video surveillance system known as Mabat 2000, according to Amnesty. .
In one walk through the area, Amnesty researchers reportedly found 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 phones. Israeli authorities have a facial recognition app, Blue Wolf, to identify Palestinians, according to Breaking the Silence, an organization that helps Amnesty and collects testimonies from Israeli soldiers who have worked in the occupied territories.
Soldiers use the app to photograph Palestinians on the street or during house raids to register in a central database and check whether they want to be detained or questioned, according to Amnesty’s 82-page report and testimonies from Breaking the Silence. Blue Wolf’s use was previously reported by The Washington Post.
The surveillance is an attempt to reduce violence against Israelis. This year, Palestinian attackers have killed 19 Israelis. At least 100 Palestinians this year have been killed by Israeli security forces, many in shootouts that broke out during military operations to arrest Palestinian gunmen. Israel has controlled the West Bank since 1967 after it was seized from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli war that year.
Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist in Hebron, a West Bank city where violence is regular, said people were being kept under surveillance. He, his friends and family are regularly stopped by soldiers to be photographed using the Blue Wolf app. Surveillance cameras line the streets and drones generally fly overhead.
Mr. Amro said the Israeli military has become dependent on an automatic system that crosses checkpoints grinds to a halt when there are technical problems.
“Everything is monitored. My whole life is being watched. I have no privacy,” he said. “I feel like he follows me everywhere.”
Mr. Amro said Palestinians were angry that the surveillance tool was never used to identify crimes 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 system would begin to be implemented around 2020. The technology would allow the Israeli government to move toward an automatic occupation, he said. Palestine for constant monitoring and surveillance.
Facial recognition systems, he said, “are not only an invasion of privacy but a powerful tool for control.”
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