This Seminar Series is co-ordinated by LINCS PhD student Tomás McInerney and Dr Meg Schwamb, Astrophysics Centre, QUB.  The Seminars explore the implications of massive-scale data processing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning for both the actual operation of algorithmically driven public decision-making in wider society, and within science and engineering.  Seminars are held online on the second Wednesday of each month at 3pm. 

Automating occupation: International humanitarian and human rights law implications of the deployment of facial recognition technologies in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Speaker: Rohan Talbot, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)

Media investigations have revealed that Israel has added facial recognition technologies (FRTs) to the panoply of advanced AI-driven security and surveillance technologies that it deploys in its administration and control of the occupied Palestinian territory, which also includes predictive policing, “smart city” platforms and online surveillance.

While much has been written about the implications for the use of such technologies on the human rights of people in the domestic sphere, less studied are the legal and human impacts of their uses by militaries extraterritorially. This is despite the fact that militaries have long been at the forefront of their development and use.

In this session, the context of Israel’s uses of FRTs will be discussed, as will what is known about their impacts on the rights and welfare of the Palestinian population under its occupation. The relevant international legal framework that should regulate these technologies, as well as the implications for human rights advocacy and policy.

To register your attendance at our seminar, and/or to be added to the LINCS/LINAS Seminar Series Teams space, please email Tomás at tmcinerney01@qub.ac.uk.

Further information on the doctoral training programmes can be found at the following links:

LINCS (Leverhulme Interdisciplinary Network on Cybersecurity and Society)

LINAS (Leverhulme Interdisciplinary Network on Algorithmic Solutions)