August 27, 2019

Dystopian system to watch over an imprisoned people

All across the West Bank there is a network of secret cameras hooked up to cutting-edge facial recognition software. It tracks every Palestinian face it can find, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Israeli Defense Forces’ surprise partner in this Orwellian surveillance system? Microsoft.

This June, Microsoft made a massive multi-million dollar investment in AnyVision, an Israeli facial recognition company led by former Mossad and Israeli defense staff – even though Microsoft had just committed to follow six ethical “principles to guide Microsoft’s facial recognition work.”

A description of one of these principles:

“We will not deploy our facial recognition technology in those surveillance scenarios where we believe there are inadequate safeguards to protect democratic freedoms and human rights.”

Under Israel’s apartheid system, there can never be adequate “safeguards” to protect the freedoms and human rights of Palestinians.

And there is NOTHING ETHICAL about creating a dystopian system to watch over an imprisoned people.

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