The Israeli military has reportedly implemented a facial recognition dragnet across the Gaza Strip, scanning ordinary Palestinians as they move throughout the ravaged territory, attempting to flee the ongoing bombardment and seeking sustenance for their families.

The program relies on two different facial recognition tools, according to the New York Times: one made by the Israeli contractor Corsight, and the other built into the popular consumer image organization platform offered through Google Photos. An anonymous Israeli official told the Times that Google Photos worked better than any of the alternative facial recognition tech, helping the Israelis make a “hit list” of alleged Hamas fighters who participated in the October 7 attack.

This would not be the first time Google’s purported human rights principles contradict its business practices — even just in Israel. Since 2021, Google has sold the Israeli military advanced cloud computing and machine learning-tools through its controversial “Project Nimbus” contract.

Unlike Google Photos, a free consumer product available to anyone, Project Nimbus is a bespoke software project tailored to the needs of the Israeli state. Both Nimbus and Google Photos’s face-matching prowess, however, are products of the company’s immense machine-learning resources.

The sale of these sophisticated tools to a government so regularly accused of committing human rights abuses and war crimes stands in opposition to Google’s AI Principles. The guidelines forbid AI uses that are likely to cause “harm,” including any application “whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”

  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    So all you have to do in order to get useful results from google is to commit genocide?

  • fin@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Why is Google responsible for this tho

    Disclaimer: I do oppose the stance of Israel

    • febra@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Google is providing this service to the IDF on a contract basis.

      Google also provides Israel with cloud computing through project Nimbus.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      Google doesn’t seem to be interested in stopping it which is weird.

      Also Google is already providing cloud services to power israel’s IT system for apartheid with project Nimbus.

      • HopFlop@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        If I understand this correctly, they are only using it to track terrorists who actively participated in a terror attack, right? What’s the big deal then…?

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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          3 months ago

          No they kidnap random people from Gaza that get recognized in some system. There was a journalist that had nothing to do with Hamas and was recognized by the israel system and kidnapped by the IDF. He was only freed because of outrage. Many others get kidnapped and tortured by the IDF and the IDF even cuts their arms and legs off.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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            3 months ago

            and the IDF even cuts their arms and legs off.

            Wouldn’t be surprised, considering who they (EDIT: IDF) are friends with, but a source for that?

  • toofpic@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Toyota won’t say anything to people who install machineguns on their pickups!

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      Toyota can’t IP block people installing machine guns on their pickups and isn’t actively supplying ISIS with cloud infrastructure though