Ukraine uses facial recognition to identify dead Russian soldiers and tell families
Categories: FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Ukraine is using facial recognition software to identify the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in combat and to trace their families to inform them of their deaths, Ukraine`s vice prime minister told Reuters.Reuters exclusively reported that Ukraine`s Ministry of Defense this month began using technology from Clearview AI, a New York-based facial recognition provider that finds images on the web that match faces from uploaded photos. It was not clear at that time how the technology would be used Fedorov declined to specify the number of bodies identified through facial recognition but he said the percentage of recognized individuals claimed by families has been "high." Reuters was unable to independently confirm this.Opponents of facial recognition, including civil rights groups, have decried Ukraine`s adoption of Clearview, citing the possibility of misidentification. Clearview says its actions have been legal. It says its face matches should only be a starting point in investigations.The Ukrainian government has an online form where Russian relatives can submit a claim to collect a body. Fedorov did not provide details of how the bodies are being returned to families and Reuters could not independently determine that.Ukraine`s military has said some 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded on Feb 24. Russia has said its casualties are much lower during what it describes as a "special military operation" to demilitarize Ukraine. Obtaining pre-death samples of such data from enemy fighters is challenging, though, opening the door to innovative techniques such as facial recognition.But clouded eyes and injured and expressionless faces potentially make facial recognition unreliable on the dead, said Bassed, who has been researching the technology.In the United States, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System said it has not adopted automated facial recognition because the technology is not currently generally accepted in the forensic community.