Sada Social Accuses Meta of Enabling IDF’s ‘Lavender’ AI System to Track and Kill Gazans
A prominent Palestinian digital rights organization has called for an urgent investigation into allegations that the Israeli military has been exploiting user data from the WhatsApp messaging platform to power an artificial intelligence system used to target and kill Palestinians in Gaza.
Sada Social, a group affiliated with the Al Jazeera Media Institute and Access Now, leveled the explosive accusations against Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, in a statement published on Saturday. The group claimed that Meta has been fueling the operations of “Lavender,” an AI system employed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to pinpoint the locations of individuals that Israel alleges are members of Hamas, the militant group governing Gaza.
“We condemn in the strongest terms Meta’s complicity in enabling the Israeli military’s unethical and unlawful use of WhatsApp data to track, target and extrajudicially execute Palestinian civilians living under an illegal occupation and blockade,” said Marwa Fatafta, Sada Social’s Middle East Policy Manager. “This is an egregious breach of Palestinian digital rights and privacy.”
The allegations stem from an investigation published last month by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and the London-based research group Foxglove. Their report revealed that the IDF has spent years compiling a secret database on Palestinians in Gaza by mining personal data from a variety of sources, including WhatsApp communications and location metadata. This massive trove of information was allegedly used to train the Lavender AI system, which can pinpoint the locations of Palestinians within a few meters and shares that intelligence with military operatives.
According to the report, this invasive surveillance enabled the IDF to carry out targeted strikes and assassinations of hundreds of Palestinians suspected of having ties to Hamas, with potentially catastrophic impacts on innocent civilians. The disclosures have sparked outrage among Palestinians and human rights advocates who view Lavender as a potent new tool of oppression in Israel’s military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Zuckerberg to Blame
In its statement, Sada Social called on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to order an independent audit of WhatsApp’s data practices and alleged complicity in extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses against Palestinians. The group further demanded the Biden administration sanction Meta and any other U.S. companies enabling violations of Palestinian digital rights.
“WhatsApp has become an indispensable communications lifeline for millions of Palestinians living under draconian movement restrictions,” Fatafta said. “Allowing this personal user data to be weaponized against our communities represents a moral failure of corporate accountability and social responsibility.”
The alleged leveraging of WhatsApp data highlights long-simmering concerns over the popular encrypted messaging app’s privacy standards and data retention policies. WhatsApp’s terms of service state that some user metadata – including phone numbers, IP addresses, and logs of timing and frequency of communications – may be collected and shared with third parties in certain circumstances.
In a statement provided to Al Jazeera, a Meta spokesperson did not directly address the allegations regarding Lavender but maintained the company’s policies prohibit misuse of its platforms.
“We condemn the action of indiscriminate violence across the Gaza Strip and regularly work to keep people safe in every region where our services are accessible,” the spokesperson said. “We have strict rules prohibiting users from sharing any form of credible threats or promotion of violence on our services, and we will continue to remove content that violates our policies as we investigate these disturbing allegations.”
The IDF has not commented publicly on the specifics surrounding its use of Lavender, but Israeli authorities have previously defended their cyberwarfare operations as lawful counterterrorism measures against Hamas in Gaza. Critics, however, say such clandestine mass surveillance tools enable rampant human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians already living under a suffocating military occupation.
“The weaponization of artificial intelligence by Israel’s military regime further entrenches the dehumanization and subjugation of the Palestinian people,” said Walid Hammad, a Sada Social organizer based in Gaza City. “We cannot allow private companies like Meta to abet in these crimes without consequence. Too many innocent lives are at stake.”
With tensions flaring again between Israeli forces and militants in Gaza, the latest allegations are likely to stoke further anger and mistrust between the sides. As advanced AI and surveillance technologies rapidly proliferate, activists warn Palestinians risk being perpetually tracked and targeted by powerful algorithms using their most intimate personal data against them.
For its part, Sada Social vowed to escalate its pressure campaign until Meta conducts a full accounting of its own role in Israel’s digital oppression of Palestinians. “No public interest justifies compromising our privacy, safety and human rights,” said Fatafta. “Meta must be held responsible for its complicity, even by proxy, in our collective subjugation.”
