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2 May 2023

OPT: Amnesty Intl. calls on cos. to stop supplying tech used "to implement system of apartheid" in light of new evidence facial recognition is used to control Palestinians' freedoms; incl. co. comments

Amnesty International has released a report into the use of surveillance technology to control Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The report finds surveillance systems using facial recognition technology are deployed only against Palestinians, without their consent, and serve to uphold a state of apartheid in the region and leave Palestinian people at risk of arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. Palestinians are also at risk of arbitrary arrest, interrogation and detention.

Amnesty International identified cameras made by two companies, Dutch TKH Security and Chinese Hikvision. TKH told Amnesty International they no longer provide this technology to its Israeli distributor and that it does not have a direct business relationship with Israeli security forces. Hikvision did not respond.

The report contains a recommendation that:

Businesses should stop supplying technologies that can be used by the Israeli state to implement a system of apartheid against Palestinians in the OPT, and commit crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the maintenance of illegal settlements. Businesses should also immediately cease the production of facial recognition and remote biometric recognition technologies that enable mass surveillance and discriminatory targeted surveillance, and delete any illegitimately acquired biometric data used to build databases and any models or products built upon such data.

In addition to the constant threat of excessive physical force and arbitrary arrest, Palestinians must now contend with the risk of being tracked by an algorithm, or barred from entering their own neighbourhoods based on information stored in discriminatory surveillance databases.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

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