Iran suspected of using AI to identify hijab-law violators

Iranian authorities are likely to have used a facial-recognition system to locate hijab and modesty law violators. This is reported by Wired.

According to Oxford University researcher Mahsa Alimardani, several women received charges of violating the law by post. They were not personally notified, and they had no direct contact with the authorities.

She corroborated the words of Iranian exile Sarzamineh Shadi. She reported cases of women being held to account for hijab-rule violations during protests a few days after the demonstrations.

The nationwide protests in Iran began in September 2022, days after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Before that she was detained by the morality police for not wearing a hijab during a trip to Tehran. According to witnesses, the security forces beat Amini, which likely caused her death.

As a result, the subsequent nationwide protests led to 19,000 arrests and the deaths of 300 people. The authorities made some concessions, but these ran counter to the government’s attempts to establish a mass surveillance system.

Verifying exact methods of identifying people in Iran remains difficult. Previously, authorities claimed to use facial-recognition systems to enforce hijab laws.

These efforts are enabled by a seven-year state identification system in the country. It requires facial scans and other biometric identifiers.

Alimardani argues that this system is used not only to create national IDs. The authorities may use it to identify alleged hijab-law violators or “enemies of the regime”.

The government’s vision of surveillance extends far beyond face recognition. Since 2016 Iran has been attempting to build an intranet, isolated from the World Wide Web and reliant solely on internal servers. These efforts follow similar isolated internet systems in China, and more recently in Russia.

Meanwhile Iranian officials have repeatedly tried to curb access to global internet platforms, including during the latest protests.

Back in February 2022, Iran announced its intention to to enter the top ten among the leading AI nations.

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