An Israeli organization has collected witness reports from soldiers, according to which Palestinians can be identified via a new app using a mobile phone camera. The case shows how different standards apply to the use of technology to monitor citizens.
Israeli soldiers check Palestinian ID cards at a crossing from the West Bank to Israel after several prisoners escaped in September.
The report makes people sit up and take notice: The so-called Blue Wolf application would monitor Palestinians from the Israeli army. The app – installed on the soldiers’ cell phones – enables them to take photos of civilians in order to identify them using facial recognition or to add them to a biometric database. This was reported by Israeli soldiers from the Breaking the Silence organization.
According to a report by the Washington Post, an associated database contains profiles of all Palestinians in the occupied territories. The database contains not only pictures, but also the family history, information on educational level and safety rating. After taking a photo, the Blue Wolf app shows with colors whether the person is in danger.
The method described indicates nothing less than the digital mass surveillance of the Palestinians in the West Bank and thus a massive encroachment on their privacy. The statements were published in early November by Breaking the Silence and the Washington Post. The organization, founded by former Israeli soldiers, regularly uses witness reports to draw attention to controversial methods and human rights violations by the Israeli army.
Ori Givati, one of the directors of Breaking the Silence, sees the use of “Blue Wolf” as a new level of Israeli control over the Palestinians. “The Palestinians are photographed on the street without their consent and have no way of defending themselves,” explains Givati in a telephone interview. In an interview, he firmly rejects criticism of his organization, it publishes untruths and exaggerates: “We have a strict process for verifying such information. The statements were documented in several personal meetings with soldiers. ” Givati emphasizes that the soldiers are anonymized because they feared social repression in Israel.
Controversial debate on health data
Givati is disappointed that its publication did not meet with any more resonance in Israel: “The reports have received too little attention, considering the debate that the surveillance of Israeli citizens to combat the corona pandemic has sparked.” In order to cope with the increasing number of infections, the Israeli government decided last year to use citizens’ cell phone data for contact tracing. The Shin Bet secret service was charged with monitoring. A system was used that was originally intended to protect national security.
Tal Zarsky, law professor and data protection expert at the University of Haifa, sees this as a clear abuse of the technology. “Over time, the Israelis became more and more bothered by the fact that their cell phones were being monitored without their consent,” he said in an interview. With the rapid spread of the omicron variant, the government recently wanted to reintroduce this method, but the Supreme Court put a stop to the plans. It described the procedure as disproportionate and criticized the fact that the data was used without the consent of the persons being monitored. “In addition, the technology was flawed. Many were mistakenly labeled Corona-positive, “says Zarsky.
The lack of reactions to “Blue Wolf” actually contrasts with the discussions about the privacy of Israeli citizens. In Israel, the right to privacy is enshrined in a fundamental right. This also means that personal data may only be used with their consent. This law does not apply in the West Bank. But humanitarian law also provides for the protection of privacy.
Zarsky finds the reports on “Blue Wolf” worrying: “Technologies like those used to fight the pandemic should be allowed to be used to fight terrorism. But the military has to weigh up the proportionality. However, nobody outside the army knows how this balancing act is justified in the case of ‘Blue Wolf’. ” The topic is an example of the dilemma between privacy protection and national security.
One soldier denies
The army has confirmed that the app exists. But what it can really do and what it is used for remains unclear. A soldier who wants to remain anonymous confirmed to this newspaper that he had also used the app. The reservist is responsible for digital technologies in his unit. He stressed, however, that the application could be less than what the soldiers had claimed against Breaking the Silence.
If he checks suspicious passers-by on the street, he can enter their ID number and name in the app. The app could then use the military’s database to provide information about the person. Instead of arresting the person as a precaution, he could find out on the spot whether he was actually dangerous. In addition, the database only contains people who have already come into the focus of the army in the past.
He denies the statements that the app contains the ability to recognize faces. You can take photos with the app, but they are sent to the military headquarters, which tries to identify the person. Photos should only be taken by those who cannot identify themselves or for whom the app sounds the alarm, emphasizes the reservist, but admits: “There are of course soldiers who do not adhere to these rules and who abuse their power.” The reservist describes the reports of Breaking the Silence as exaggerated and partly incorrect. No verifiable evidence has yet been produced by Breaking the Silence or the Army.
The report about the alleged face recognition app was not the first about the use of new technologies and, above all, biometric face recognition by the Israeli military in the occupied territories. In 2019, the Israeli army announced a facial recognition program at checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank. The project was carried out with cameras from Anyvision. In the same year, Microsoft invested in the company, but withdrew when it was reported that Israel was using the technology for mass surveillance of the Palestinians.