Published: 19 July 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
This Israeli face-recognition start-up is secretly tracking Palestinians (Haaretz)
Anyvision is Israel’s most high-profile biometric recognition firm, particularly in facial recognition. Israeli business website TheMarker has learned that Anyvision is taking part in two special projects in assisting the Israeli army in the West Bank.
One involves a system that it has installed at army checkpoints that thousands of Palestinians pass through each day on their way to work from the West Bank. The product lets the army quickly identify whether the person passing through has an Israeli work permit, thereby shortening the wait at the border.
Anyvision’s second project is much more confidential and includes facial recognition technology elsewhere in the West Bank, not just at border crossings. Cameras deep inside the West Bank try to spot and monitor potential Palestinian assailants.
By providing face-recognition software, Israeli high-tech is on the wrong side of justice (Haaretz)
AMITAI ZIV: The state may use Anyvision technology to catch terrorists, of course, but the technology is part of a project trampling Palestinian rights and wouldn’t just pass without criticism in a law-abiding nation.
There are no such systems in the streets of Tel Aviv, for example, and if there had been, there would have been a justifiable howl of protest. Nor would a system of the sort be thinkable inside Jewish settlement in said territory, even if it had security benefits.
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Four Corners, July 15 2019 (ABC)
The program uncovers disturbing evidence of how China is effectively operating the world's largest prison. In Xinjiang province the Uyghur population is rounded up, detained or monitored using AI technology and mass surveillance tools.
UTS, Curtin unis announce reviews over links to surveillance tech used by Chinese Government (ABC)
Photo: Palestinians cross Qalandiya checkpoint to perform Friday prayers during Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on May 10 (Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency)
