Israel has deployed a massive facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip, creating a database of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, New York Times Report. The program, created in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, uses technology from Google Photos and custom tools built by Tel Aviv-based company Corsight to identify people with ties to Hamas.
According to Israeli media, the facial recognition project was established in conjunction with Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. era Report. After the Oct. 7 attack, officers from the Israeli military’s Unit 8200, the IDF’s main intelligence unit, identified potential targets by watching security camera footage and videos uploaded to social media by Hamas. Soldiers also asked Palestinian prisoners to identify people in their communities with ties to Hamas.
Corsight, which claims its technology can accurately identify people even if their faces are less than 50% visible, used the photos to build a facial recognition tool that Israeli officials could use in Gaza. To further build a database and identify potential targets, the Israeli military has set up checkpoints equipped with facial recognition cameras on the main roads used by Palestinians fleeing to the south.An official told reporters the target was eraThe purpose was to create a “blacklist” of people involved in the October 7 attacks.
In some cases, Corsight’s tool mistakenly identified people as affiliated with Hamas
the soldiers told era Corsight’s technology isn’t always accurate, especially when it relies on blurry footage or photos where people’s faces are occluded. In some cases, Corsight’s tools incorrectly identified people as having ties to Hamas. One of the cases involves the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who was taken away from an Israeli military checkpoint on Gaza’s central highway in mid-November as he and his family tried to leave Gaza for Egypt. The system has marked Abu Tohar on Israel’s most wanted list. Israeli officials held Abu Toha in a detention center, where he was beaten and interrogated for two days before being returned to Gaza without explanation.
The Israeli military supplemented Corsight’s technology with Google Photos — which, unlike Corsight, is free to use — soldiers told the Israeli Army era. Intelligence officials have uploaded a database of “known persons” to Google Photos and used photo searches to further identify people.an official told era Google Photos can identify people even when only a small part of their face is visible, which makes it better than other tools like Corsight.
Corsight executives and funders have been outspoken about their desire to help the Israeli military cope with the ongoing war in Gaza.In an October column jerusalem postAaron Ashkenazi is the founder and managing partner of Awz Ventures, a Canadian fund that led a $5 million round in Corsight in 2020. Awz, he wrote, was providing Israel with “the technological tools to stop these evil terrorists.” Most of the companies in Awz’s portfolio fall into the artificial intelligence and cybersecurity sectors.
In October, some hospitals in Israel began using Corsight’s technology to identify patients. Forbes reported at the time.according to Forbes Corsight’s technology is able to take “images of people whose characteristics have been affected by physical trauma and find matches in photos sent by concerned family members,” the report said.
Corsight focuses primarily on government, law enforcement and military applications. In 2020, the one-year-old company said its technology could recognize masked faces. Two years later, Corsight said it was developing a tool to create models of faces based on DNA. Last year, Corsight worked with the police department in Bogota, Colombia, to track down murder and theft suspects on the public transportation system.
Corsight did not respond to a request for comment.