The Washington Post reported Monday morning that Israeli security forces are conducting a wide-ranging operation in Judea and Samaria, aimed at building a digital database of information on Palestinian Authority residents.
The report claims that since mid-2020, a number of Israeli soldiers deployed in Judea and Samaria have been tasked with using a special video application to record the faces of Palestinian Arabs during routine patrols in the area.
According to soldiers cited by the report, soldiers are encourage to film as many Palestinian Arabs as possible. After a subject's face has been scanned, the application reportedly offers the user information on the person in question.
The application, according to the report, is part of a broader program to use digital face recognition in Judea and Samaria.
The program also includes a system employed in Hebron, dubbed "Hebron Smart City", which monitors the city's population in real-time.
The soldiers cited by the report had spoken with the left-wing organization Breaking the Silence.
Breaking the Silence executive director Avner Gvaryahu rejected the digital face recognition as a security tool, calling it "another instrument of oppression."
“Whilst surveillance and privacy are at the forefront of the global public discourse, we see here another disgraceful assumption by the Israeli government and military that when it comes to Palestinians, basic human rights are simply irrelevant.”