THE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
“The Kremlin is vengeful,” notes Dan Storyev, editor of the English section of OVD-Info, a Russian non-governmental organization (NGO) defending human rights. Since the funeral (of Alexeï Navalny), he has attacked the individuals who were there, trying to identify them on video surveillance images. »
At least 19 people who attended rallies in support of Mr. Navalny, who died on February 16 in the Russian penal colony where he was detained, were arrested after being identified on video surveillance images. Among them, a woman who had laid flowers in memory of the political opponent, and another filmed during the funeral, according to OVD-Info. “The Kremlin has sophisticated technical means. They are experts when it comes to destroying civil society and building authoritarian rule. They use all the tools at their disposal to stay in power, and their arsenal is gigantic,” analyzes Mr. Storyev.
The British media The Bureau of Investigative Journalists (TBIJ) investigated, in partnership with the editorial staff of Follow the Money and Paper Trail Media, the links between Russian surveillance programs and a “click worker” platform. , paid to perform microtasks online. These precarious workers were hired to train the facial recognition software deployed in Moscow, through Toloka, a platform installed in Amsterdam.
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This subsidiary of the digital giant Yandex, often called the “Russian Google”, has found service providers for two Russian companies: Tevian and NTechLab. However, these two companies have been sanctioned by the European Union (EU) for their contributions to “serious human rights violations in Russia, including arbitrary arrests”. This prohibits any collaboration with them by European companies; Toloka assures that the contracts for Tevian and NTecLab were managed by a sister company, under Russian law.
Video surveillance of Moscow streets and metro
Tevian and NTechLab are preferred suppliers of software for Moscow's public highway video surveillance system, one of the most developed in the world. Its facial recognition cameras, installed in the subway and city streets, scan faces and compare them to a “watch list.”
“Wherever you are in Moscow, you can be immediately recognized, and this can be used against you,” says Mr. Gusev. In March 2021, while he was a local elected official, he received a call from the police informing him that they had a video of him at a demonstration in support of Mr. Navalny. He is summoned to the police station. Less than two weeks later, he fled Moscow to avoid trial – he was accused of organizing the protest. “I had to leave Russia because I understood that this case was very serious, and that there was a strong chance that I would receive a criminal conviction,” recalls Mr. Goussev, who admits to having participated in the demonstration but assures that he did not organize it.
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