Palestinians worried about ties between Twitter and an Israeli company

This is a change in the terms of service for X-Premium subscribers, formerly Twitter Blue: they should, in the coming weeks, have to verify their identity by providing a copy of their identity document and sending a ” selfie”. But identity verification is outsourced to an Israeli company. And its links with the Israeli secret services worry some users, especially the Palestinians.

The company is called Au10tix. Based in Hod HaSharon, north of Tel Aviv, it specializes in identity verification and has already had contracts with major companies such as Google, Uber or PayPal. It is not his skills, but his possible links with the Israeli secret services that are questioning. Nadim Nashif, director of 7amleh, a Palestinian digital rights organization based in Israel, explains:

” This subcontractor is Israeli. And its staff and leaders have clear ties to the Israeli security apparatus. They are veterans. So there is a fear among Palestinian and Arab human rights activists that their data will fall into the hands of agencies they don’t want. (…) In the Palestinian Territories and in the Arab world, several Twitter/X users are calling not to share their biometric data with the platform. And some say they want to turn to other networks.

RFI