Israel escalates surveillance of Palestinians with facial
recognition program in West Bank
washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-palestinians-surveillance-facial-recognition/2021/11/05/3787bf42-26b211ec-8739-5cb6aba30a30_story.html
November 5, 2021
HEBRON, West Bank — The Israeli military has been conducting a broad surveillance effort
in the occupied West Bank to monitor Palestinians by integrating facial recognition with a
growing network of cameras and smartphones, according to descriptions of the program by
recent Israeli soldiers.
The surveillance initiative, rolled out over the past two years, involves in part a smartphone
technology called Blue Wolf that captures photos of Palestinians’ faces and matches them to a
database of images so extensive that one former soldier described it as the army’s secret
“Facebook for Palestinians.” The phone app flashes in different colors to alert soldiers if a
person is to be detained, arrested or left alone.
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