Facial recognition to be used in Iran to enforce stricter rules on women

Rules have gotten stricter.

The Government in Iran has announced that they are planning to start using facial recognition technology as a way of cracking down on a strict new hijab law. The new plans will see the Government placing the technology on public transport to identify women who refuse to comply with new laws. The Hijab and Chastity law was signed into law by President Ebrahim Raisi back in August and places specific restrictions on how women must dress. Women who now post photos online without their hijab could be deprived of social rights for up to one year, including being barred from entering government buildings, banks, or using public transport. Laws around hijabs in Iran have been strict since the Islamic theocracy took charge in 1979 and are becoming more controversial as time goes on. It is currently compulsory for women over the age of nine to wear a hijab, but women have become more resistant with many sharing videos on social media without hijabs on only a month before the new law came into play. According to reports from The Guardian, Secretary of Iran's Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, said that the government now plans on using facial recognition to prevent this. Women have been protesting the new laws, with one woman, 28 year old Sepideh Rashno, getting on public transport without her hijab. She was harassed by other passengers and eventually forced off the bus, and days after the footage of her was posted online by her accuser, she was arrested. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), she was then forced to confess and apologise to her accuser on television. According to article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code, any woman refusing to wear a hijab in public is a criminal act, punishable by flogging, imprisonment or a fine.