The new citizen cop weapon ‘AI image search’

It has come to our attention from information passed on to us by comrades in Germany that the former member of Red Army Faction, Daniele Klette, was possibly identified using a new repressive weapon of ‘Artifical Intelligence image search’. The program in question is named as ‘PimEyes’, which was used apparently by an ‘investigative’ citizen cop journalist from the snitch ‘investigative’ website Bellingcat, who put the police wanted notice of Klette from the 1990s through the AI image search. PimEyes is a facial recognition search website that allows users to identify all images on the internet of a person given a sample image. It is comparable to the facial recognition company Clearview which is a notorious for providing software to law enforcement and government agencies and other organizations. The company’s algorithm matches faces to a database of more than 20 billion images collected from the Internet, including social media applications. Several Twitter users claim to have used it in an effort to identify US Capitol rioters, for example.

For several years she was involved in a Brazilian culture centre in the Kreuzberg district, where she practised capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines dance and fighting. It is thought that the discovery of photographs of her with her capoeira group at Berlin’s annual carnival led to her identification and arrest. The cops have yet to confirm the link between the arrest and a podcast from 2023.

The use of Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition software is not only dangerous in the hands of the authorities but also in its widespread use by the have a go heroes and citizen cops. With the increase of surveillance technologies permeating through all society, from the smart phone camera to the doorbell camera. All of these are presented as for personal safety and security but in actual fact are leading to the self-surveillance of our entire environment. In the past computer technology was brought forward in Germany in response to the Red Army Faction’s attacks. Computerisation of taxes, rental agreements, wages, etc were able to be used to narrow down what the German security forces named as ‘sympathisers’, a minimal group of people they could place under surveillance that did not buy into their electronic system, who they deemed as avoiding it especially if they paid using cash.

The same tactics that were learnt during the 70’s and 80’s are now being upgraded not only by using the advanced technologies but asking even more for the ‘responsible citizen’ to be their extra pair of eyes in the corners of the society they cannot reach. The expansion of crime fighting ‘private eye’ style entities on the internet and social media such as blogs and podcasts that have already been mentioned fuel even further the active participation of growing online private security industry, by not only private companies but by any citizen who feels the need to fill the void in their life by becoming a Dick Tracey or Inspector Gadget for the day.

This article is only to highlight once again the danger of technology to be used as a weapon to surveil those who dare to resist as the Red Army Faction did, which becomes a weapon easily used by the society to surveil itself in the aid of the authorities and cops.

For the urban guerrilla, against the new surveillance technologies and all the citizen cops

The Uncivilized