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Message   VRSS    All   Israels military reportedly used Google Photos to identify ci   March 27, 2024
 3:08 PM  

Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
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Title: IsraelΓÇÖs military reportedly used Google Photos to identify
civilians in Gaza

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2024 20:08:43 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/israels-military-rep...

The New York Times reports that IsraelΓÇÖs military intelligence has been
using an experimental facial recognition program in Gaza thatΓÇÖs
misidentified Palestinian civilians as having ties to Hamas. Google Photos
allegedly plays a part in the chilling programΓÇÖs implementation, although
it appears not to be through any direct collaboration with the company.

The surveillance program reportedly started as a way to search for Israeli
hostages in Gaza. However, as often happens with new wartime technology, the
initiative was quickly expanded to ΓÇ£root out anyone with ties to Hamas or
other militant groups,ΓÇ¥ according to The NYT. The technology is flawed, but
Israeli soldiers reportedly havenΓÇÖt treated it as such when detaining
civilians flagged by the system.

According to intelligence officers who spoke to The NYT, the program uses
tech from the private Israeli company Corsight. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, it
promises its surveillance systems can accurately recognize people with less
than half of their faces exposed. It can supposedly be effective even with
ΓÇ£extreme angles, (even from drones) darkness, and poor quality.ΓÇ¥

But an officer in IsraelΓÇÖs Unit 8200 learned that, in reality, it often
struggled with grainy, obscured or injured faces. According to the official,
CorsightΓÇÖs tech included false positives and cases where an accurately
identified Palestinian was incorrectly flagged as having Hamas ties.

Three Israeli officers told The NYT that its military used Google Photos to
supplement CorsightΓÇÖs tech. Intelligence officials allegedly uploaded data
containing known persons of interest to GoogleΓÇÖs service, allowing them to
use the appΓÇÖs photo search feature to flag them among its surveillance
materials. One officer said GoogleΓÇÖs ability to match partially obscured
faces was superior to CorsightΓÇÖs, but they continued using the latter
because it was ΓÇ£customizable.ΓÇ¥

Engadget emailed Google for a statement, but we havenΓÇÖt heard back from
them at the time of publication. WeΓÇÖll update this story if we get a
response.

One man erroneously detained through the surveillance program was poet Mosab
Abu Toha, who told The NYT he was pulled aside at a military checkpoint in
northern Gaza as his family tried to flee to Egypt. He was then allegedly
handcuffed and blindfolded, and then beaten and interrogated for two days
before finally being returned. He said soldiers told him before his release
that his questioning (and then some) had been a ΓÇ£mistake.ΓÇ¥

The Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems From Gaza scribe said he has
no connection to Hamas and wasnΓÇÖt aware of an Israeli facial recognition
program in Gaza. However, during his detention, he said he overheard someone
saying the Israeli army had used a ΓÇ£new technologyΓÇ¥ on the group with
whom he was incarcerated.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/israels-military-rep...
identify-civilians-in-gaza-200843298.html?src=rss

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