Facial recognition and NSO spyware – Israel ups surveillance of Palestinians – report

Supporters of the initiative have argued that the database will allow soldiers to avoid unnecessary privacy violations of innocent Palestinians, while making the process of identifying and arresting terrorists and criminals more effective. 

By World Israel News Staff

Israel is stepping up its surveillance over Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria, in an attempt to build a comprehensive facial recognition database and install spyware on the phones of people linked to the six NGOs Israel has declared are fronts for terror, according to reports from the Washington Post and Hebrew language media.

The IDF is expanding its “Facebook for Palestinians,” called Blue Wolf, which allows for easier identification and tracking of people based on advanced facial recognition technology, the Post said on Monday.

The program, which can be downloaded to soldiers’ smartphones, flashes different colors after a person’s image is captured, indicating as to whether the person should be “arrested, detained, or left alone.”

Soldiers on patrol in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria were reportedly encouraged to take pictures of as many people as possible in order to expand the databse, including children and the elderly.

Some units were given prizes for the most number of people photographed, the Post reported, saying that its sources included two recently released Israeli soldiers and others who had given information about the initiative to the Breaking the Silence group, which aims to “end the occupation.”

One recently discharged soldier said she felt they had to speak out because the surveillance is “a total violation of privacy of an entire people.”

She said that she “wouldn’t feel comfortable if they used it in the mall in [my hometown], let’s put it that way. People worry about fingerprinting, but this is [worse than] that several times over.”

A separate report on Monday from Israel’s Kan News said that anonymous security experts found the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware on the mobile phones of several Palestinians associated with the NGOs which Israel recently announced are linked to terror groups.

The discovery that the Israeli spyware was used by several governments to hack the phones of journalists and activists proved a major public relations crisis for the Jewish State.

“Shocking exposé this morning in the Washington Post: The IDF maintains a database with personal details of Palestinian residents, based on facial recognition technology,” wrote MK Mossi Raz of the Meretz party on Twitter in response to the report.

“This is a dystopian invasion of the privacy of residents, who are not involved in any violation of the law, and without the ability to object.”

Supporters of the initiative have argued that the database will allow soldiers to avoid unnecessary privacy violations of innocent Palestinians, while making the process of identifying and arresting terrorists and criminals more effective.

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