Ukrainians are using US facial-recognition software [Clearview AI] to identify dead Russian soldiers and inform their families.

In all, the Ukrainian government has run over 8,600 facial recognition scans on dead or captured Russian soldiers since the war began. The operation has been carried out by the country’s IT Army, which is made up of “a volunteer force of hackers and activists that takes its direction from the Ukrainian government.” The clandestine group says it has used the positive identifications obtained from the US-based technology to harass the families of 582 Russian soldiers.

The Ukrainian communications to the horrified family members included sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.

I am sure at least some of the identifications are going to be erroneous, in which case, there is a strong case of harassment.  As for sending photos of abandoned corpses to Russian families, that is likely- to be a crime. Clearview’s technology has come in for a lot of criticism in its pervasive attack on privacy.  Funds for the company have come from internet billionaire and libertarian, Peter Thiel, co founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook. In other words, the military-intelligence complex.

Meanwhile, in Europe, a coalition of digital rights groups filed complaints with data-protection authorities in France, Austria, Italy, Greece, and the United Kingdom, alleging violations of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In November 2021, the UK regulatory body threatened to fine Clearview AI and ordered it to stop processing data of UK citizens. In December, France also ordered the company to stop processing citizens’ data and gave it two months to delete any data it held. Australia has deemed its practices illegal.

Most recently, in March 2022, Italy’s data protection agency announced a 20 million euro penalty against Clearview AI for breaching the GDPR, ordered it to delete any data on Italians and banned it from processing data any further.