Ukraine Using Facial Recognition Software to Identify Dead Russians and Tell Their Families – Opinion

Arguably, Putin’s War, that is, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is the first war that is thoroughly integrated with social media. Social media allows us to get Battle Damage Assessment (BDA), even if the target remains smoking. We’ve seen prisoners taken and war crimes committed, aircraft shot down, and turrets popped off tanks. Private citizens can now catalog the equipment they have lost thanks to GIS software and geocoding media. plot the location of units. The war narrative has been driven by social media, and it played a greater role than traditional media in shaping public opinion.

A passive tool can also be transformed into an offensive weapon, to influence public opinion even within totalitarian countries such as Russia. This video was first seen in April. It is believed that Russian troops stole cell phones from Ukrainian citizens to use for communication with their families. In this case, a Russian soldier was killed, and a Ukrainian used the phone to contact the dead Russian’s parents to let them know that their son was dead. The video was quite disturbing to see and heavily shared by proRussian Twitter accounts.

Ukrainian soldier makes a joke about the loss of his girlfriend by calling her the girlfriend pic.twitter.com/FnrGUhHB8g

— SSTV (@southsidertv) April 10, 2022

It had an impact, regardless of how simple the call. They know their son is gone. His body will not be found. This will be something they discuss with others. They will start to anger their government as they experience a longer time between receiving the confirmation phone call and getting it confirmed in writing. This story will make young men reconsider reporting for conscription. Their parents, friends, and relatives will support them.

A lot of cases show that something started as an ad-hoc idea can become a cohesive action program.

Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.

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The country’s IT Army, a volunteer force of hackers and activists that takes its direction from the Ukrainian government, says it has used those identifications to inform the families of the deaths of 582 Russians, including by sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.

Clearview AI is a U.S. technology firm that makes face-scanning software. The Ukrainians support it as a way to incite dissent within Russia, disarm other fighters, and bring an end to a terrible war.

There are also dissenters.

But some military and technology analysts worry that the strategy could backfire, inflaming anger over a shock campaign directed at mothers who may be thousands of miles from the drivers of the Kremlin’s war machine.

The West’s solidarity with Ukraine makes it tempting to support such a radical act designed to capitalize on family grief, said Stephanie Hare, a surveillance researcher in London. But contacting soldiers’ parents, she said, is “classic psychological warfare” and could set a dangerous new standard for future conflicts.

“If it were Russian soldiers doing this with Ukrainian mothers, we might say, ‘Oh, my God, that’s barbaric,’ ” she said. “And is it actually working? Or is it making them say: ‘Look at these lawless, cruel Ukrainians, doing this to our boys?’ ”

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But officials’ strategy of informing families of their loved ones’ demise has raised concerns that it could anger the same Russians they had hoped to persuade. One national security expert said other Ukrainian actions — holding news conferences with captured Russian soldiers and posting to social media photos and videos showing prisoners of war — have been seen inside Russia not as a welcomed exposure to the truth but as a humiliation by the enemy.

I don’t particularly buy that argument because Ukraine has nothing to lose. Their country is at stake. They can’t just make some Russians disappear by this campaign. What are they going to do with them? To invade Ukraine, and try to wipe out Ukrainian identity.

There are always risks. Many Ukrainian agencies already use this facial recognition software to other purposes.

Ukrainian agencies, [Clearview AI’s chief executive, Hoan]Ton-That explained that they have used the app for checking whether someone is an infiltrator, saboteur or possible Russian infiltrator at military checkpoints. The system might deter Russian soldiers, for fear that they will be identified. Ton-That also stated that Ukrainians may use the app to confirm the identities of refugees fleeing for safety.

We know that technology can only stay in place once it gains a foothold in society. We will look back on this episode and see that the real impact of this software was less in helping Ukraine remain free from Putin’s ravages and more as a proof of concept for its use by military and population control organizations.