Shocking investigations have exposed how the Israeli military is using Google Photos to surveil Palestinians in Gaza, capturing their faces without consent at checkpoints and with drones, and feeding this data into colossal databases used to track their identities and every movement.
The problematic tech has wrongly flagged civilians as wanted Hamas militants. In a harrowing essay for The New Yorker, Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha details how he was beaten and interrogated by the Israeli military after his arrest. He was ultimately released without being charged and told his facial recognition-enabled arrest had been a “mistake.”
While Google has long claimed to be a progressive, responsible company, so far, it has failed to take any steps to stop its software from fueling the Israeli government’s surveillance regime in Gaza. That’s where you come in.
We don’t need any more “mistakes” to happen before Google takes action to ban the Israeli military from using its tech to violate people’s human rights. If there’s anything corporations care about, it’s their brand — and when Google’s CEO hears from tens of thousands of activists calling on him to change course, you can bet he’ll start paying closer attention.
Google is failing its motto to “do the right thing”, but activists like you can help hold the company accountable. Tell Google CEO Sundar Pichai: Don't let your tech be complicit in war crimes!