Forbidden Stories reports on FindFace in Iran: Facial recognition 'an issue' for Western democracies

François Picard welcomes Alexander Abdelilah, Investigative Journalist for Forbidden Stories who just published an investigative report on how the Iranian regime secretly acquired and deployed FindFace, a powerful facial recognition system developed by Russian company NTechLab. A leaked dataset of confidential contracts and technical documents uncovered evidence that this technology entered Iran’s surveillance infrastructure as far back as 2019. Mr. Abdelilah explores how this system operates both technically and politically. FindFace allows authorities to run recorded footage: from CCTV cameras, street recordings, or even social media videos, through an algorithm capable of matching a face in a crowd and of tracing individuals who participate in demonstrations. While the Iranian example demonstrates the risks in an authoritarian context, it also raises questions relevant to democracies.