Ukraine is employing facial recognition software to identify Russian servicemen killed in action and notify their relatives, according to the country's vice prime minister.
Mykhailo Fedorov, who is also the minister of digital development, told Reuters that officials were using Clearview AI software to track down the social media profiles of deceased enemy forces.
Ukraine began deploying the technology earlier this month, the news agency reported, although the objective was unknown.
The system searches the web for photographs that match the faces in provided photos.
Fedorov stated that as a courtesy to the mothers of those soldiers, they are sharing this information via social media in order to inform them that their sons have been killed and to enable them to come and retrieve their bodies.
He declined to specify the number of bodies identified by face recognition, but said the percentage of recognized individuals claimed by relatives was "high."
Face recognition opponents, including civil liberties organizations, have criticized Ukraine's implementation of Clearview, noting the risk of misidentification.
According to Forbes, Albert Fox Cahn, creator of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, the introduction of surveillance technology into combat might be fatal - regardless of how good the goal.
He stated that this is a potential human rights tragedy. "When facial recognition makes errors during peacetime, innocent individuals are arrested."
"When facial recognition fails in a war zone, innocent people are killed," he continued.
Cahn stated that when facial recognition eventually misidentifies the deceased, "heartbreak for the living" will result.
Clearview is now defending itself against a lawsuit brought in federal court in the United States of America by consumers in Chicago under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.
The case is currently pending to determine if the company's collection of photographs from the internet breached privacy laws.
Clearview asserts that its actions were legal. It states that its face matches should be used as a starting point for further inquiry.
Fedorov stated that Ukraine was not utilizing technology to identify its own combatants. He made no mention of why.
Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs declined to comment.
It has been in charge of the country's Look For Your Own initiative, a Telegram channel where it uploads photographs of unidentified detained or deceased Russian servicemen and invites family to make claims.
The Ukrainian government maintains an online form through which Russian relatives can make a claim for the recovery of a body.
