Ukraine using facial recognition to identify dead Russians, contact families: report
Multiple victims reported after strike on Kharkiv office building
Ukrainian officials said a Russian strike in Kharkiv on Saturday, April 16, killed at least one person, injured 18, and inflicted major damage to a five-story administrative building, along with several vehicles. Credit: SES Kharkiv via Storyful
Ukrainian police and military are using facial recognition technology to identify captured and killed Russian soldiers, then contacting their families to share gruesome details, according to a report from The Washington Post.
In the 52 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, officials there have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches using software from Clearview AI, a controversial U.S. tech company that's faced scrutiny for filling its database with photos they never got permission to use.
To date, Ukraine’s IT Army, a volunteer group of hackers and activists who work with the Ukrainian government, has reportedly used the technology to notify 582 Russian families about soldiers’ deaths.
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Ukraine is also using the technology to identify Russian soldiers who are looting civilian homes and storefronts, the Post reports.
The country sees it as a "brutal but effective" war tactic, but opponents say the strategy could backfire, fueling more ire in Russia. They also say the software is imperfect, which could lead to misidentification and - in a war zone - mean the difference between life and death.
Russian troops are using armored personnel carriers in their invasion of Ukraine. (Gavriil GrigorovTASS via Getty Images)
Groups like Privacy International are calling for Clearview AI to end their work in Ukraine. They say "the potential consequences would be too atrocious to be tolerated — such as mistaking civilians for soldiers."
The report comes as Russian forces accelerate scattered attacks on Kyiv, western Ukraine and beyond. Russia's military command had warned of renewed missile strikes on Ukraine's capital after the loss of its Black Sea flagship and alleged Ukrainian aggression on Russian territory.
In the Kyiv region, authorities have reported finding the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most shot dead, since Russian troops retreated two weeks ago.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.