Russian facial recognition technology with links to the military found on the principal provider of Azerbaijan

11 December 2019

  • Qurium Media Foundation found facial recognition technology, from the Russian company NtechLa, on servers in Ukraine, Serbia, Singapore and Azerbaijan
  • The military contracting company Rostec owns 12,5% of NtechLa
  • The same backbone Internet provider that runs FindFace in Azerbaijan is blocking the news website Gununsesi.info

FindFace, a facial recognition technology developed by the Russian company NtechLa, has been found on servers in Ukraine, Serbia, Singapore and Azerbaijan. NtechLa has strong ties with the military contracting company Rostec, that owns 12,5% of the shares of the company and is currently exporting the technology.

One of FindFace’s installations was found by Qurium Media Foundation on a server owned by Azertelecom, the backbone Internet provider that connects Azerbaijan to the global Internet. Furthermore, Qurium detected the presence of FindFace on nine other servers in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Singapore and Azerbaijan.

Qurium’s forensics report: https://www.qurium.org/alerts/azerbaijan/find-face-and-internet-blocking-in-azerbaijan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Qur1um/status/1204330182875787264

Contacts:

Digital forensics: Tord Lundström, Qurium Media Foundation <t@virtualroad.org>

Media: Clara Zid, Qurium Media Foundation <info@virtualroad.org>