Ukraine claims using facial recognition to identify slain Russian soldiers

Ukraine has been using facial recognition software to identify the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in combat and to trace their families to inform them of their deaths, Ukraine's vice prime minister told Reuters news agency.

Reuters exclusively reported that Ukraine's Ministry of Defence this month began using technology from Clearview AI, a New York-based facial recognition provider that finds images on the web that match faces from uploaded photos. It was not clear at that time how the technology would be used.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's vice-PM who also runs the ministry of digital transformation, told Reuters in an interview that Ukraine had been using Clearview AI software to find the social media accounts of dead Russian soldiers.

From there, authorities are messaging relatives to make arrangements to collect the body, he said.

"As a courtesy to the mothers of those soldiers, we are disseminating this information over social media to at least let families know that they've lost their sons and to then enable them to come to collect their bodies," Fedorov said, speaking via a translator.

Fedorov declined to specify the number of bodies identified through facial recognition but he said the percentage of recognised individuals claimed by families has been "high."

Reuters was unable to independently confirm this.

Lawsuit against Clearview

Opponents of facial recognition, including civil rights groups, have decried Ukraine's adoption of Clearview, citing the possibility of misidentification.

Clearview is battling a lawsuit in US federal court in Chicago filed by consumers under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The ongoing case concerns whether the company's gathering of images from the internet violated privacy law.

Clearview says its actions have been legal. It says its face matches should only be a starting point in investigations.

Fedorov said that Ukraine was not using the technology to identify its own troops killed in battle. He did not specify why.

Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs did not respond to requests for comment. It has been overseeing the country's Look For Your Own project, a Telegram channel where it posts images of unidentified captured or killed Russian soldiers and invites claims from relatives.

The Ukrainian government has an online form where Russian relatives can submit a claim to collect a body. Fedorov did not provide details of how the bodies are being returned to families and Reuters could not independently determine that.

Ukraine's military has said some 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since Russian attack on February 24. Russia has said its casualties are much lower during what it describes as a "special military operation" to demilitarise Ukraine.

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Ukraine's use of Clearview.

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