(May 7, 2023 / JNS) Amnesty International has released a new report accusing Israel of using facial recognition technology to enforce a policy of apartheid.

The report, titled, “Automated Apartheid” and released last week, accuses the Jewish state of “violating the basic human rights of Palestinians by using facial recognition technology in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

The report accuses the Israel Defense Forces of increasingly utilizing advanced facial recognition technology to track the movements of Palestinians in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

Amnesty relies on testimony from Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, and alleges the use of “an ever-growing surveillance network which is entrenching the Israeli government’s control over Palestinians.”

The Israel Defense Forces responded by stating that it carries out “necessary security and intelligence operations.”

NGO Monitor, which monitors the actions of various non-governmental organizations, released a statement in response to this latest report.

“As with previous Amnesty attacks, this document erases the terrorism and public safety concerns that drive Israeli policy, as well as the ways in which technological advancements allow for less intrusive security measures. Amnesty also ignores the ubiquitous nature of facial recognition software in countless settings around the world, treating something that has become commonplace as a unique, particularly egregious form of Israeli wrongdoing,” said NGO Monitor.

“The joint Amnesty International and Breaking the Silence report is a clear attempt to exploit an issue of global debate to further its spurious apartheid campaign and promote a BDS agenda. Like Amnesty’s other apartheid attacks, the group presents claims based on highly distorted or even false information. Moreover, Amnesty continues to strip away the context of terrorism, including dozens of attacks taking place in and around Jerusalem’s Old City” said Shaun Sacks, senior researcher at NGO Monitor.

Arsen Ostrovksy, a human rights lawyer and CEO of the International Legal Forum, said, ““The use of facial recognition software is an entirely legal and commonly used counterterrorism tool by liberal democracies; but like on so many other aspects, Amnesty applies one standard to everyone, and a differential standard to Israel, as part of their relentless campaign of lawfare and delegitimization of the Jewish state. It is also the peak of hypocrisy that on the same day that Amnesty attacked Israel for using AI to actually save lives and prevent terror, they themselves got slammed for using AI to generate fake images. How can Amnesty be trusted on Israel? In short, they can’t!”

Facial recognition software is used by many countries to identify any potential threat including Airports in the Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Photo: Flash90