Russia Expands Facial Recognition to Suppress Dissent

Russian authorities are rapidly expanding the use of facial recognition technology to track protesters to their homes and arrest them—a powerful new Kremlin tool for suppressing opposition. Meanwhile, when state security agents are suspected of murders or attacks on journalists and activists, surveillance cameras are sometimes turned off or “malfunction.”

“The system is so ‘leaky’ that personal data obtained through surveillance can be bought for a small sum on the Russian black market, along with other types of personal information. This is called ‘probyv’,” notes The Washington Post.

China is the world leader in deploying vast facial recognition networks, including systems used to track and suppress the Uyghur minority. But Putin’s Russia is racing to catch up.

“Russian companies like NtechLab produce some of the world’s most advanced facial recognition software,” the article emphasizes, “as authorities battle the opposition. The opposition, in turn, uses social media to expose Russian kleptocracy.”

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin stated that the facial recognition system, widely implemented in the capital in January 2020 and rolled out in at least 10 other Russian cities, now plays a role in 70% of criminal investigations. Moscow has over 189,000 cameras with facial recognition capabilities, and more than 12,300 such cameras in subway cars.

“They are increasingly used against protesters and activists,” says Sarkis Darbinyan, head of legal practice at RosKomSvoboda. “Cameras record the faces of people going to protests, and this information stays in the system.”

According to Darbinyan, during the January and February protests over the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, RosKomSvoboda received more than a dozen reports of protesters being arrested at home or in the subway based on such surveillance.

A “Digital Concentration Camp”

Surveillance and facial recognition are increasingly used by law enforcement worldwide, raising concerns among human rights advocates about the right to privacy.

For example, the FBI used facial recognition to investigate the January 6 Capitol riot. In the UK, South Wales Police lost a landmark case last year when an appeals court ruled the technology violated privacy and equality laws.

But in authoritarian states, the situation is very different.

“Instead of using the system for the good of the city, it’s used as a tool for total surveillance and total control over citizens,” said protester Sergey Abanichev, who was arrested with the help of facial recognition.

He threw an empty paper cup toward police during a protest in the summer of 2019, saying he did not intend harm. A week later, nine special forces officers knocked on his apartment door. He was charged with mass disorder and spent a month in jail before the charges were dropped.

He says that ordeal was enough to keep him from participating in protests this year. However, on January 31, when more than 4,500 people were arrested during mass events, police suddenly grabbed him in the subway. Officers told him the facial recognition system had shown a “high level of alert.” Abanichev was interrogated for several hours but eventually released.

Spreading fear and deterring activism is exactly what the authorities want, says Darbinyan: “If people know they can be tracked, they may change their behavior. They might decide not to attend a rally, not to protest, or maybe even not to visit a mosque for prayer, because they know they’re being watched.”

On January 31, activist Kamil Galeev was detained at home three hours before a major protest. He says the reason was photos taken by the facial recognition system during a mass public event on January 23. Kamil was jailed for 10 days.

Another activist, Mikhail Shulman, was detained in the subway on January 31, also with the help of facial recognition. Since then, he says he feels like he’s living in a “digital concentration camp,” as he told RosKomSvoboda.

Black Market Data

Data from facial recognition systems is sent to a central database, the Unified Data Processing and Storage Center, accessible to law enforcement and some officials. Corrupt government employees sell this data on a thriving black market, along with mobile phone records.

Russian journalists investigating alleged official abuses, as well as criminals tracking potential victims and spies checking up on competitors, spouses, employees, or business partners, all access the black market.

“Often, it’s not the government or authorities who have access to the data, but criminals,” says Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society.

Last year, RosKomSvoboda volunteer Anna Kuznetsova saw several facial recognition ads on Telegram and paid $200 for access to data from 79 Moscow cameras, receiving information about her daily routine, work and home addresses, and routes.

Journalist Andrey Kagansky from MBKh Media bought five days of access to his own data from several cameras and received an 80-page report tracking his face for a month. He reported that for 30,000 rubles (about $400), one could buy direct access to all cameras in the system.

But the cameras aren’t pointed at everyone.

Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) analyzed an online map of Moscow’s facial recognition cameras and found none in neighborhoods where high-ranking officials lived. The U.S. State Department imposed sanctions on Russian officials and organizations last month over the near-fatal poisoning of Navalny in August last year.

The poisoning showed that security services constantly monitor journalists and opposition figures—but turn off surveillance cameras when preparing for attacks.

Konstantin Kudryavtsev, a member of the FSB’s covert biological and chemical weapons unit, confirmed the poisoning in a December phone call with Navalny, who posed as a senior security aide. When Navalny asked if there was a chance any of the poisoning team had been caught on video, Kudryavtsev replied that surveillance cameras are turned off during such operations: “There are cameras everywhere now, but we turn them off, you understand, right?” He added, “We always eliminate any chance of being seen. Maximum secrecy is crucial. No one should be visible.”

In another case, British investigative outlet Bellingcat used flight and phone records from the Russian black market and discovered that Kudryavtsev and two colleagues from the same FSB unit were in southern Russia around the time 26-year-old journalist and anti-torture activist Timur Kuashev was killed in Nalchik in July 2014. Bellingcat published a letter from local traffic police to investigators stating that all surveillance cameras near the theater were out of order that night.

Kuashev’s body, with bruises on his face and a needle mark under his arm, was found on a forest road nine miles from his home. His death was ruled as heart failure.

The Internet Protection Society reported a “worrying new trend” after access to real-time surveillance camera footage was cut off during January protests in six major Russian cities. Klimarev said it appeared police “removed” oversight of their own actions.

Human rights lawyer Kirill Koroteev stated there are no effective ways to check how law enforcement uses facial recognition and surveillance cameras: “The system is set up so that it’s impossible to ask how it works.”