A new report accuses Google of helping Israel to spy on Palestinians with machine-learning and AI tools capable of “facial detection, automated image categorization, object tracking, and even sentiment analysis that claims to assess the emotional content of pictures, speech, and writing.”
This is part of “Project Nimbus,” a military contract between the Israeli government and Google and Amazon. When this project was announced last October, Google and Amazon workers warned about this.
An investigation from The Intercept says that personal information of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank is being collected into a system called “Wolf Park.” This includes their “photographs, family histories, level of education, ID number, age, gender, close associations, and a security rating for each person.”
Google has a long history of questionable government collaboration. In 2003, it began customizing its search engine under a special contract with the CIA. In 2005, it was revealed that a US intelligence agency was working to “leverage Google’s [user] data monitoring” capability as part of an effort to acquire data of “national security intelligence interest.”
Do no evil, eh? This sounds kinda evil but is not surprising if you’ve been watching Google’s history.
