Hello everyone and welcome to ZD Tech, ZDNet’s daily editorial podcast. My name is Anne Mignard and today I explain to you how the power of Tehran intends to use facial recognition to repress Iranian women in public space.
In the heart of summer, on August 15, the very conservative Iranian President Ebrahim Raïsi signed a new decree to once again codify the dress code of women in his country.
In particular, those who do not wear the hijab in public places are targeted. The hijab is the outfit that covers the whole body except for the face and hands.
Cameras installed in public places, such as the metro, would make it possible to set up this system
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the law imposes it on women.
But over the past two decades, many women have defied this prohibition by revealing part of their hair.
Technological innovation is therefore called upon to identify and punish the recalcitrant with a fine, assures the Iranian press. Cameras installed in public places, such as the metro, would make it possible to set up this system.
Video as a political weapon… and of repression
This new turn of the screw responds to an equally technological offensive by Iranian human rights defenders.
On July 12, the National Day of Hijab and Chastity in Iran’s official calendar, activists urged Iranian women to post videos of themselves removing their hijab in public.
A call heard and paid dearly by a young woman of 28 years. Filmed and denounced through video, she was arrested, beaten and later forced to apologize on Iranian television.
Biometrics and identification
The implementation of facial recognition is one more technological step to control the Iranian population.
Since 2015, Iran has gradually introduced biometric ID cards. These cards embed a chip that stores data such as iris scans, fingerprints and facial photographs.
The authorities would therefore now have basic access to all the digitized faces of Iranians. The identity of a person in a viral video could therefore be verified in just a few seconds.