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The country’s IT army says it used these identifications to inform families of the deaths of 582 Russians, including by sending them photos of abandoned corpses.
Author of the article:
Washington Post
Drew Harwell, The Washington Post
Publication date:
April 15, 2022 • 22 hours ago • 8 minutes reading • 423 comments Zinaida Makishayva, 82, reacted as she recounted how Russian soldiers treated her in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Borodyanka, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine , April 11, 2022 Photo: REUTERS / Zohra Bensemra
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Ukrainian authorities conducted more than 8,600 searches to identify dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since the Moscow invasion, using scans to identify bodies and connect with hundreds of their families in one of the most the horrible applications of technology. to date.
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The country’s IT army, a volunteer force of hackers and activists led by the Ukrainian government, said it used these identifications to inform families of the deaths of 582 Russians, including by sending them photos of abandoned bodies.
Ukrainians support the use of face scanning software by US technology firm Clearview AI as a brutal but effective way to incite dissent in Russia, discourage other fighters and speed up the end of a devastating war.
But some military and technology analysts are worried that the strategy could backfire, sparking anger over a shock campaign targeting mothers who may be thousands of miles away from the Kremlin’s military machine.
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Western solidarity with Ukraine makes it tempting to support such a radical act designed to take advantage of family grief, said Stephanie Hare, a research observer in London. But connecting with soldiers’ parents, she said, is a “classic psychological war” and could set a dangerous new standard for future conflicts.
“If Russian soldiers did this to Ukrainian mothers, we could say, ‘Oh my God, this is barbarism,'” she said. “And does it really work?” Or does it make them say, “Look at these lawless, cruel Ukrainians doing this to our boys?”
Clearview AI CEO Joan Ton-Ta told The Washington Post that more than 340 employees at five Ukrainian government agencies can now use his tool to perform face recognition searches whenever they want, for free .
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Clearview employees are already conducting weekly, sometimes daily, Zoom training conversations with new police and military personnel seeking access. Ton-That told a few “oh, wow” moments as Ukrainians witnessed how much data – including family photos, social media posts and connection details – they could gather from a single corpse scan.
Some are using the Clearview mobile app to scan faces while on the battlefield, he said. Others have entered for training while at a checkpoint or on patrol, with the night sky visible behind their faces.
“They are so enthusiastic,” Ton-Ta said. “Their energy is really high. They say they will win every call. ”
The company, Ton-That said, first offered its services to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry last month after seeing Russian propaganda claiming soldiers captured there were actors or fraudsters.
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The system was used primarily by police officers and federal investigators in the United States to see if a photo of a suspect or witness matched others in their database of 20 billion images taken from social media and the public Internet.
But about 10 percent of the database comes from Russia’s largest social network, VKontakte, known as VK, making it a potentially useful tool for scanning the battlefield, Ton-That said.
Clearview shared with The Post emails from three Ukrainian agencies – the National Police, the Ministry of Defense and a third agency asking the company to remain confidential – confirming that the software is being used. Officials at these agencies and the IT army declined to comment further or did not respond to requests for comment. Clearview declined to identify two other Ukrainian agencies that they say are currently using its software.
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In an email to Clearview with The Post, a Defense Department spokesman said he had tested Clearview by scanning photos of dead soldiers and was “pleasantly surprised” when the tool returned links to the Russians’ VK and Instagram accounts.
With the encouragement of the military, other agencies have also tested the technology, Ton-Toi said. A National Police officer said in emails shared with The Post that the agency scanned the face of an unidentified body found in Kharkov with a crooked head and aimed at the VK profile of a 32-year-old man who was photographed with supporters. of the Kharkiv People’s Republic, a separatist group.
Ukrainian agencies, Ton-That said, used the app to verify the identities of people at military checkpoints and to check whether the Ukrainian was a possible Russian infiltrator or saboteur. He said the system could deter Russian soldiers from committing war crimes for fear of being identified, and said Ukrainians were considering using the tool to verify the identities of Ukrainian refugees and their hosts while fleeing for safety.
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But officials’ strategy to inform families of the deaths of their loved ones has raised fears that it could anger the same Russians they hoped to persuade. One national security expert said other Ukrainian actions – holding press conferences with captured Russian soldiers and posting photos and videos of prisoners of war on social media – were seen in Russia not as a welcome statement of truth but as humiliation. the enemy.
A video released by the IT army in the Telegram this month shows snippets of what the group described as conversations with relatives of Russian soldiers. In a chat, someone who was sent pictures of the bloodied face of a Russian soldier replied: “This is Photoshop !!! IT CAN NOT BE.” According to the footage, the sender replied: “This is what happens when you send people to war.
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In another conversation, a stranger sent a message to a Russian mother that her son was dead, along with a photo showing the body of a man in the ground – a face with a grimace and an open mouth. The recipient responded with disbelief, saying it was not him before the sender handed over another photo showing a gloved hand holding the man’s military documents.
“Why are you doing this?” the recipient replied. “Do you want me to die?” I don’t live anymore. You must be enjoying it. ”
The stranger replied that thousands of young men were already dying. This is “the only way to stop all this madness,” the sender wrote. How many more people have to die?
The post office could not verify the calls on its own, and attempts to contact the mother were unsuccessful. But other elements of the same video show the Clearview face recognition search interface along with the names of Russian soldiers. In one clip, a search of the face of a corpse reveals the VK profile of a man photographed standing on the beach. The profile of the man, who remains online, shows that he has followed online groups dedicated to the Russian army, as well as fitness, fishing and barbecue.
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In addition to scanning corpses, Ukraine also uses facial recognition to identify Russian soldiers filmed by cameras looting Ukrainian homes and shop windows, an official from Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation told The Post.
This month, Mikhail Fedorov, head of the ministry, shared on Twitter and Instagram the name, hometown and personal photo of a man he said was recorded sending hundreds of kilograms of looted clothes from the Belarusian Post Office to his home in eastern Russia. . “Our technology will find them all,” he wrote.
An agency spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Clearview that she had used the system to identify people detained in the country and check their social media for anything suspicious, including their “range of contacts”. . More than 1,000 such searches were conducted in the first few weeks, the official said in an email that Clearview shared with The Post.
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Some analysts said Ukraine could use modern technology to contrast with Russia’s more basic military equipment or pursue humanitarian goals in a conflict overshadowed by horrific Russian attacks.
But facial recognition search results are imperfect and some experts are worried …
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