The project has now been handed over to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for use in its rescue operations. Franco's team began by mapping locations where they believed Hamas operated, then searched social media accounts relevant to those locations. Israeli startup Tagbox assisted in filtering the scraped images before running them through the Amazon Rekognition tool. Despite the project's success, Amazon's Rekognition tool has faced criticism in the past for inaccuracies and ethical concerns.
Key takeaways:
- AI and cyber experts have used Amazon's facial recognition technology, Rekognition, to identify missing individuals in the Israel-Gaza war. The technology was used to compare images and videos scraped from social media with a database of photos provided by the Israeli government and families of the missing.
- The project, led by former deputy director of the Israeli government’s National Cyber Directorate, Refael Franco, identified around 60 missing people and provided new leads on five others over the course of two weeks. The project has now been handed over to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for deployment in its rescue operations.
- One of the main partners in the initiative was Israeli startup Tagbox, which typically uses its AI algorithms to sort and categorize images and videos for businesses. The company helped filter the scraped images for relevance before running them through the Amazon Rekognition tool.
- This is the second documented use of facial recognition technology in the Israel-Hamas war. Amazon's Rekognition tool, launched in 2016, has been criticized for inaccuracies and ethical concerns, leading to Amazon stopping sales to police departments.