Israel-OPT: Dutch investment group pushes for human rights safeguards on surveillance tech
ASN Impact has given Dutch firm TKH a year to conduct due diligence or face disinvestment over draconian surveillance of Palestinians in East Jerusalem
Israel has a dense network of facial recognition cameras entrenching its system of apartheid
‘This is the heaviest tool in ASN Impact Investors’ toolbox’ - ASN Impact explaining its position to Amnesty
Amnesty International has welcomed a demand from a major Dutch investment group that the Dutch manufacturer of cameras deployed in occupied East Jerusalem must apply human rights safeguards or face disinvestment.
ASN Impact Investors has said that the Dutch firm TKH Group must adopt human rights due diligence policies within a year or face the termination of investment.
The move comes after Amnesty published a major report last year showing how Israel’s vast network of facial recognition-enabled cameras violated the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, entrenching Israel’s system of apartheid.
The 81-page report, Automated Apartheid, documented how Israel’s use of a coordinated surveillance network - including systems known as “Red Wolf” and “Mabat 2000” - to track Palestinians and automate harsh restrictions on their freedom of movement were an integral component within a wider apparatus of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
The report identified the use of cameras made by TKH Group in occupied East Jerusalem, likely to be part of the Mabat 2000 networked facial recognition system. This system, introduced in 2000 and significantly upgraded since 2017 to integrate facial recognition capabilities, has given the Israeli authorities unprecedented powers of control and surveillance over the everyday lives of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, facilitating arbitrary restrictions on their rights to freedom of movement and freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
Amnesty found the presence of one to two CCTV cameras every five metres across the area of Jerusalem’s Old City and Sheikh Jarrah. The omnipresent surveillance, embodied by these cameras, has created an atmosphere of fear, anxiety and repression among Palestinians, further entrenching Israel’s system of apartheid. In East Jerusalem in particular, the use of facial recognition technology has increased in tandem with Israel’s attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians from strategic areas, creating a chilling effect on Palestinians’ ability to organise in public.
Responding to Amnesty’s Automated Apartheid report findings, ASN Impact Investors told Amnesty:
“ASN Impact Investors has decided to actively engage with TKH Group to develop proper due diligence policies to avoid such deals from taking place in the future. This means that TKH Group has one year to satisfy ASN Impact Investors’ demands otherwise the investment will be terminated. This is the heaviest tool in ASN Impact Investors’ toolbox.”
The decision is also reflected in ASN Impact Investors’ annual report for 2023 and half-yearly investment report for the second half of 2023.
Matt Mahmoudi, Amnesty International’s Interim Head of the Silicon Valley Initiative, and Researcher on AI and Human Rights, said:
“Investors provide the enabling conditions and resources for entities like TKH Security to develop and sell AI-driven surveillance technologies.
“Their vigilance is important especially where the risk of human rights harms is heightened.
“This is particularly urgent in the wake of Israel’s escalating surveillance-enabled crackdown on freedom of movement and freedom of association and peaceful assembly after 7 October.
“Supplying hardware or software that can be used to reinforce apartheid, which is a crime against humanity, and other human rights violations by Israel against Palestinians, must not be tolerated under any circumstance.”
Automated Apartheid and businesses
In April 2021, Amnesty identified several TKH CCTV products situated on infrastructure operated by Israeli police in occupied East Jerusalem. To date, TKH has not answered Amnesty’s questions about the nature of any TKH Security-owned products used by the Israeli security forces, including any indirect relationships, and nor has it explained its human rights due diligence procedures or whether it had or intended to make a public commitment not to develop or sell facial recognition products.
Given this continued lack of clarity and commitment to heightened human rights due diligence, Amnesty sees ASN Impact Investors’ decision as an important one in ensuring corporate accountability. Business investors have a responsibility to take proactive and ongoing steps to identify and respond to artificial intelligence’s potential or actual human rights impacts. This entails undertaking heightened human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their human rights impacts.
Investors and surveillance providers should not engage in the development or sale of facial recognition technology, and immediately cease its export to the Israeli authorities for use against Palestinians. Amnesty is calling for a global ban on the development, sale, export and use of facial recognition systems for surveillance purposes.