In Tehran and several other cities across the country, jubilant crowds celebrated the death of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. While these spontaneous gatherings were largely ignored by the cameras of Iran’s state-run media, they likely did not escape the gaze of surveillance cameras. Now facing an uncertain future due to significant strategic losses caused by American and Israeli strikes, the regime owes its longevity to a vast surveillance and repression apparatus.
Statements from Iranian officials and leaked documents have shown in recent years that authorities took an interest in facial recognition technology. It was unclear, until now, whether they had actually acquired it.
Based on documents from Iranian and Russian companies, an investigation revealed that the regime and several affiliated entities acquired a cutting-edge facial recognition software, developed by a Russian company under Western sanctions, beginning in 2020 and 2021.This investigation was coordinated by Forbidden Stories and its partners Le Monde, Papertrail Media, Der Spiegel and ZDF, in collaboration with The Signals Network, an organization supporting whistleblowers.
Russian technology obtained through Iranian front companies
On August 19, 2019, the Iranian company Rasadco purchased FindFace, the facial recognition software of Russia’s well-known surveillance firm NtechLab. That same year, Rasadco was absorbed by Kama, a larger company, which would go on to sell NtechLab’s software to various Iranian entities.
According to a document reviewed by Le Monde, Kama is led by a close associate of the Iranian state, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The ideological and military backbone of the regime figures among the company’s clients, as does Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence.
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