Gürcistan used Western-sanctioned Russian facial recognition system to identify protesters

A striking report prepared by AlgorithmWatch, a civil society organization based in Berlin and Zürih, revealed that Gürcistan used a Russian-made facial recognition system to identify protesters in pro-European demonstrations. The system in question, Polyface, was developed by the Moscow-based Papillion AO, which is under Western sanctions. According to the report, the Gürcistan İçişleri Bakanlığı first began procuring this controversial technology in 2013. The system was further improved through five different updates in recent years. In October 2024, a permanent license for the system was officially purchased by the Ministry.

The fact that Papillion AO has been subjected to international sanctions by Switzerland, Ukraine, Japan, and the United States makes the situation even more complex and concerning. The company's products are also actively used by law enforcement agencies in countries such as Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. The report suggests that under an update conducted in 2018, system operators in Gürcistan were trained directly by Russian personnel. Furthermore, it is stated that, like other Russian companies operating in Gürcistan, Papillion AO is obligated by Russian laws to cooperate with Russian security services when necessary.

Mass demonstrations held every day in front of the parliament building in Tiflis, which have taken on an anti-government nature, are one of the most important details that magnify the scale of the events. The Gürcü Rüyası party gradually tightened laws over time to prevent protests and disperse demonstrators; as a result, hundreds of protesters were detained and fined for administrative offenses such as 'obstructing traffic' and similar actions. When protesters started wearing masks to hide their identities, the government included this action as an administrative offense punishable by detention. According to AlgorithmWatch's findings, the most recent Polyface 3.7.0 version purchased by the Gürcistan İçişleri Bakanlığı in October 2024 was delivered in early June 2025, long after the mass remote identification and sanction processes.

The technical infrastructure of the Polyface system is based on deep learning-based recognition algorithms and has been developed by an AI company named 3DiVi, based in Novosibirsk and supported by a Russian state venture fund. The report emphasizes that the system can record high-resolution images of crowds even in inadequate lighting conditions. Additionally, it is stated that the system has the capacity to successfully identify individuals even when protesters are wearing masks or their faces are partially covered. Referring to tender documents, the report announced that the Ministry explicitly requested an 'unlimited number of operators' license for the system. The lifting of this limit, whereas the number of concurrent users was restricted to 30 until 2025, is interpreted as a strong indication of the Gürcistan government's desire to monitor and track larger protests.

The details regarding how individuals' identities are detected reveal the dimensions of the system's surveillance capacity. The system uses a database called the 'Birleşik Bilgi Bankası,' which accesses mugshots in population records to match faces with identities. Furthermore, the software can also search through images uploaded from social media and other external sources; the Ministry's request for this feature in 2024 reveals a deliberate intention for cross-platform surveillance. Thanks to the examined state tender documents, technical documents, and surveillance footage, it was determined that the system operates with three main methods. These can be listed as: automatic recognition that continuously scans live broadcasts, operator-focused search where personnel manually direct the camera and make instant comparisons with databases, and an automated watchlist that allows the photos of activists and former protesters to be pre-loaded into the system.