American Companies Are Helping Power Russia’s Massive Facial Recognition System
Russia's fighting a war in Ukraine and a war at home. As residents express their displeasure with their government, the government's cameras and facial recognition AI are going into overdrive to ensure Putin and his pals control the narrative.
Unfortunately, the Russian government is getting some help from the United States, albeit inadvertently.
Russia has been using cameras powered by facial recognition systems to crackdown on dissidents, according to reporting from Reuters. Several Russian companies are using algorithms trained and powered by chips made by U.S. firms Intel and Nvidia. Reuters said that one of the companies even received money from U.S. intelligence.
The full article from Reuters gives a more in-depth explanation of what's going on here. For years, Russia has been expanding its domestic surveillance network. And it has always been used to track dissidents, opposition party members, and other government critics. Handling real-time facial recognition requires a lot of hardware power, and for that, the Russian government has turned to American tech companies.
The facial recognition system in Moscow is powered by algorithms produced by one Belarusian company and three Russian firms. At least three of the companies have used chips from U.S. firms Nvidia Corp or Intel Corp in conjunction with their algorithms, Reuters found. There is no suggestion that Nvidia or Intel have breached sanctions.
At this point, neither Nvidia and Intel are selling directly to Russia. Both companies ended all shipments to the country following the enactment of export restrictions last March. Whatever was purchased prior to the blacklisting was above-board, and what's already in the Russian government's hands is beyond the control of these companies.
More concerning is the US government's slightly more direct participation in the development and expansion of Russia's facial recognition programs.
Reuters also found that the Russian and Belarusian companies participated in a U.S. facial-recognition test program, aimed at evaluating emerging technologies and run by an offshoot of the Department of Commerce. One of the firms received $40,000 in prize money awarded by an arm of U.S. intelligence.
$40,000 is a drop in the surveillance budget bucket, but it's still a bit disturbing to see the US government handing out money to companies most likely already providing surveillance tech to known human rights abusers. While it's true that, as a spokesperson for the IARPA program stated, an award is not the same as providing direct assistance in oppressive surveillance programs, it's still not a good look for the US Commerce Department or the National Institute of Standards and Technology - both of which are involved in awarding prizes to participants in IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) challenges.
While the US tech providers are doing what they can to prevent their products from heading to Russia, all they can really do is stop sending GPUs and other hardware there themselves. The Russian government has fans all over the world and it appears people who want to put these power graphics processors in the government's hands are buying on behalf of the blacklisted nation.
Russian customs records show that at least 129 shipments of Nvidia products reached Russia via third parties between April 1 and Oct. 31, 2022, however. Records for at least 57 of these shipments stated that they contained GPUs. In response to these findings, the spokesperson said, We comply with all applicable laws, and insist our customers do the same. If we learn that any Nvidia customer has violated U.S. export laws and shipped our products to Russia, we will cease doing business with them."
Intel isn't doing any better at preventing customers from making straw purchases for a nation that earned itself additional export controls following the Ukraine invasion.
Reuters has previously reported that at least $457 million worth of Intel products arrived in Russia between April 1 and Oct. 31, 2022, according to Russian customs records. We take reports of continued availability of our products seriously and we are looking into the matter," an Intel spokesperson said
The end result is the events detailed in the rest of the Reuters report, which is definitely worth checking out. The system - at least the facial recognition end of it - works. Reuters reviewed over 2,000 criminal cases, finding overwhelming evidence that most of the arrests and detainments were triggered by citizens - many of the anti-government protesters - passing by cameras deployed by the Russian government.
Through no fault of their own, American companies are now accomplices in oppression. While Nvidia and Intel appear to be doing what they can to comply with US regulations, there's not much they can do to stop third parties from bypassing these restrictions. And there's even less they can do about the products that are already in use, except take precautions in the future to limit their tech's contribution to world's many, many jackboots.