The Palestinian digital rights group Sada Social on Saturday called for an investigation into Israel’s alleged use of WhatsApp user data to target Palestinians with its AI system, Lavender.

The group, which is affiliated with the Al Jazeera Media Institute and Access Now, accused Meta, which owns WhatsApp, of fueling “the ‘Lavender’ artificial intelligence system used by the Israeli military to kill Palestinian individuals within the Gaza enclave.”

As Common Dreams reported in April, the Israel Defense Forces has relied on AI systems including Lavender to target people Israel believes to be Hamas members.

At 972 Magazine, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham wrote that a current commander of an elite Israeli intelligence unit pushed for the use of AI to choose targets in Gaza. The commander wrote in a guide book to create the system that “hundreds and thousands” of features can be used to select targets, “such as being in a WhatsApp group with a known militant, changing cell phone every few months, and changing addresses frequently.”

Sada Social asserted that it had found the Lavender system uses WhatsApp data to select targets.

“The reports monitored by the Sada Social Center indicate that one of the inputs to the ‘Lavender’ system relies on data collected from WhatsApp groups containing........

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