Former prime minister’s fund controls and is the main investor in Israeli company that developed AI-based facial recognition tech being used by IDF on Palestinians
An investment firm led by former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper that is devoted to launching security companies in Israel has a new “success” story: helping that country’s military conduct secret mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza.
According to The New York Times, hundreds of Palestinians have been targeted by an “expansive and experimental” spying effort to “collect and catalogue” the faces of Palestinians. At times, civilians have been “wrongly flagged” as Hamas militants and then interrogated and tortured.
The facial recognition technology the Israeli military is relying on was created by Israeli tech company, Corsight. Founded in 2019, the company officially launched after receiving a $5 million investment from Awz Ventures, the firm where Harper is a leading partner and president of its advisory committee.
Three out of five members of the Israeli company’s board of directors are Harper’s partners at Awz Ventures, meaning the former Canadian Prime Minister’s firm effectively controls Corsight.
Using Corsight’s spy tech, the Israeli military picked out Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha at a checkpoint in central Gaza in mid-November, as he was attempting to flee with his family to Egypt. He was separated, detained, and beaten.
The surveillance program that uses this technology is being run by the Israeli military’s elite cyber-intelligence Unit 8200.
A former commander of this unit, retired Israeli Brigadier General Ehud Schneorson, is another of Harper’s advisory partners at Awz Ventures. According to a report in Israeli outlet +972 Magazine, Unit 8200 has also overseen an AI-based targeting system that has marked tens of thousands of Gazans for assassination. (more...)
Stephen Harper’s firm behind spy tech Israel is using to target Gazans
My thanks to the Speaker of Israel’s Knesset @AmirOhana for his warm welcome to Jerusalem today. Ten years ago last month I addressed the Knesset as Prime Minister of Canada. Today I am visiting Israel once again to renew friendships and stand in solidarity at this time of… pic.twitter.com/vprQ60OpKV
— Stephen Harper (@stephenharper) February 18, 2024
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