The American start-up Clearview has made its controversial facial recognition programs available to the Ukrainian government. This is to identify the killed Russian soldiers and inform their affected families. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Digitization Mykhailo Fedorov told Reuters news agency. Reuters previously reported the use of special software. Moscow said there was no information on this.
In an interview, Fedorov explained that the Ukrainian government started using the Clearview program in March. In this way, you take photos of the dead and allow the images to flow through various social networks, platforms, and media. This way you can find out who the dead are and where they come from. In this way, bereaved people can be informed about the fate of their relatives who died in the war on specially prepared social media channels.
Clearview has apparently offered Ukraine its special software for free. The company announced that it has just launched a new version of its program. Customers now have access to around 20 billion publicly available portraits. These images are recorded and analyzed using an artificial intelligence algorithm.
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Such programs are highly controversial in many parts of the world, banned in many places or allowed only under very narrow legal frameworks. Clearview is also currently pending a consumer lawsuit in America for violating the Illinois Information Privacy Act. The company declares that it will meet all legal requirements. According to Clearview, it already has thousands of customers, including 3,100 government agencies in the United States alone.
In Ukraine, algorithms are used in an area that has not yet been tested. Reportedly, many Russian soldiers do not wear IDs that would reveal their identity in the event of death. Also, many families of soldiers do not know that their relatives are taking part in the attack on Ukraine. In addition, there have been several reports that the Russians will simply abandon their soldiers who have fallen in combat. Fedorov did not say how many dead people have so far been identified. To date, Ukrainian military officials establish around 14,200 – roughly as much as during the 1979-1989 Afghan War.