..."
#AlJazeera captured the underlying posture in a 2014 email referenced in the files. The reporting does not frame this as a theoretical debate. It presents an
#operational sequence:
#insecurity creates
#political demand; demand legitimizes
#foreign â
#solutionsâ; âsolutionsâ generate access, which is then
#leveraged into broader deals.
#DropSite reported that in May 2015, Barak and his business partner, Gary Fegel, made a $15 million investment in FST
#Biometrics, a
#facialrecognition /
#accesscontrol firm founded by Aharon Zeâevi Farkash, a former head of [
#IOF]
#military #intelligence.
The
#technologyâs lineage matters to how it was marketed. Drop Site reported that Farkash developed the concept of â
#remote #identificationâ during the Second
#Palestinian #Intifada at [IOF] checkpoints on the
#Gaza border; in 2003, [IOF] deployed the âBaselâ system at the
#ErezCrossing, using facial scans to identify and process
#Palestinians going to work....
In
#Nigeria, the same reporting describes how Boko Haramâs attacksâoften framed through a sectarian lensâcreated a ready-made narrative for pitching
#biometriccontrol at a
#Christian institution. Drop Site reported that a pilot was implemented at
#BabcockUniversity, and by July 2015, an âin-motion
#identificationâ system was live, with staff
#training and
#promotionallanguage emphasizing the
#filtering of âunwanted persons.â
Al Jazeeraâs account similarly notes that a
#pressrelease at the time boasted the technology would âfilter away all unwanted persons,â presenting
#surveillance as safety while normalizing
#populationcontrol logics in a
#crisis setting..."