https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/no-surveillance-in-health-care/ 

Activists call on HCRS to cancel AI contract with Israeli start-up

PRESS RELEASE 

[A PDF version of this statement is available to download here.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, September 30th, 2024

A coalition of Palestine solidarity activists, racial justice advocates, psychiatric survivors, abolitionists, and climate activists are calling on one of the largest community health providers in southern Vermont to cancel a contract with a Tel Aviv-based artificial intelligence company run by current and former Israeli military officers.

On Monday, the group is launching “No Surveillance in Health Care,” a campaign urging Health Care and Rehabilitative Services (HCRS) to void a contract with Eleos Health, Inc. The Israeli health-tech start-up sells a device that records therapy sessions along with a service that uses proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) to process those recordings and automatically generate clinical notes for those therapy sessions.

“We have had serious concerns about the introduction of AI, and especially Israeli AI, since we heard about this contract through back-channel sources several months ago,” said Hannah Sorila. “Israel has piloted and tested AI in the targeted assassinations of countless Gaza civilians, and recent events, particularly Israel’s remote detonation of personal communication devices in Lebanon, has reinforced our opposition to the introduction of AI among a community that may be particularly sensitive to the use of this technology.”

HCRS is the designated agency for the Vermont Department of Health’s mental health programs for adults and children in Windham and Windsor counties. Its budget comes primarily from state and federal funding, including Medicare and Medicaid. HCRS signed the Eleos contract without seeking input or feedback from the community, its clients, its staff or their union. HCRS informed staff members including clinicians that they are required to use the technology.

On Sept. 12, a delegation consisting of a clinician at HCRS, a client of HCRS, a psychiatric survivor advocate, and a Palestine solidarity activist presented their concerns about the contract to the board of HCRS.

“Psychiatry for centuries labeled patients as ‘paranoid,’ meanwhile using all manner of surveillance, from secret tape recorders to security cameras,” according to Calvin Moen, a psychiatric survivor advocate, in a statement read on his behalf at the meeting. “I’m alarmed by the rollout of this controversial technology and concerned that clients’ reasonable fears that their most private and vulnerable conversations could be leaked will be dismissed and pathologized.

“I’m asking HCRS to reconsider this contract and to seek solutions to providers’ notetaking woes that address the root causes and do not cause harm to those it has taken on the responsibility to care for,” Moen continued.

Eleos Health was founded by three veterans and reservists in the Israeli military: CEO Alon Joffe, a commanding officer in Unit 669 of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF); COO Dror Zaide, a former IDF drone pilot; and Chief Technology Officer Alon Rabinovich, a veteran of the IDF Matzov Unit which specializes in military information security.

According to Joffe, 35 percent of the company’s staff served in the Israeli military immediately after the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood attacks of last year, “many of them at the level of team leaders and management” (source).  That compares to 4 percent of the Israeli general public, and 10–15 percent of the Israeli tech industry who served in the IDF post-October 7 (source).

Zaide cites his experience as an Israeli Air Force drone pilot as inspiration for the provision of behavioral health care, not out of concern for the victims of Israeli drone attacks, but for the mental health of the Israeli pilots who killed them (source).

Tech start-ups contribute significantly to the Israeli economy and were responsible for 53 percent of Israeli exports in 2023 (source). Eleos has been heavily supported financially by Israeli venture capital firms such as lool ventures, which bills itself as “Israel’s Seed Fund.” Another early supporter of Eleos was Moshe Bellows a venture capitalist who serves on the board of AIPAC Venture Tech. Notably, of the venture capital firms to fund Eleos during pre-seed and seed rounds, the only one that was not Israeli or explicitly aligned with Israel was the Burlington, Vermont-based Gaingels LLC.

“Israel, the ‘start-up nation’, has in fact innovated atrocity as much as it has innovated health technology, and quite frequently through the same mechanisms, among the most important of which is artificial intelligence,” Fhar Miess, a member of Southern Vermont for Palestine, told the HCRS board at the Sept. 12 meeting.

Other members of the delegation expressed a range of concerns about the Eleos contract. An HCRS clinician whose name is being withheld for privacy stated, “My legal and ethical responsibility as a clinician to protect my client’s right to civil rights and confidentiality is a dynamic part of the therapeutic relationship that is undermined by the mandated use of AI technology, especially when there are still so many unknowns about how client data will be collected, stored and protected.”

A client of HCRS, whose name is also being withheld for privacy, said: “The Eleos device is connected to a network so the data is accessible. The information that is harvested will likely be different than the notes it composes for clinicians. It would be easy to design the device to record regardless of the power status. This is a caviler treatment of our security. It is not okay to trade my data for your convenience. I do not consent.” 

“No Surveillance in Health Care” is part of a broader effort to withdraw support for Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza and expands its assaults in the West Bank and now Lebanon.

Miess told the HCRS board, “Our presence here is part of an effort across Vermont, across New England, across the US, and across the planet, to withdraw financial, material, cultural, and ideological support from the genocidal apartheid state of Israel, following the model of boycott, divestment, and sanctions that was ultimately successful in overcoming the apartheid regime of South Africa.  We hope that you will join us as part of that movement.”

As of the time of this press release, HCRS has not provided a response to the delegation’s testimony and demands. HCRS clinicians, clients, and community members everywhere are encouraged to sign a petition calling for the cancellation of this contract. For more information and to sign the petition, please visit https://www.sovt4palestine.org/no-surveillance-in-healthcare or bit.ly/4gLaC18.

The “No Surveillance in Health Care” campaign is endorsed by Southern Vermont for Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace of Vermont & New Hampshire.

Israel is nearly one year into its genocidal campaign in Gaza. This is the latest escalation in the 76 year occupation of Palestine, during which Israel has instituted an apartheid regime via land theft, military and paramilitary violence, and aggressive surveillance of Palestinian communities. Israeli "Defense" Forces and their affiliates have pioneered technologies responsible for killing and surveilling millions of people (Where's Daddy; Lavender; The Gospel; Project Nimbus). As the recent pager attacks in Lebanon illustrate, the Israeli millitary honors no ethical boundaries when it comes to using technology to achieve its goals. 

The self-proclaimed "startup nation," Israel exports technology and population control techniques as a means of establishing diplomatic relationships with other nations (Saudi Arabia; UAE; right-wing governments of Latin America; apartheid South Africa; NYPD). In addition to expanding surveillance and counterinsurgency systems worldwide, these partnerships position Israel as a key player in the global economy and a legitimate state. Israel's ascendance in the software and tech industries normalizes the settler colonization of Palestine and undermines the safety of vulnerable communities around the globe.

Eleos Health is a prime example of the Israeli tech industry's direct links to Israeli militarism. Nearly the entire leadership team of Eleos is comprised of members of the Israeli "Defense" Forces. At one time since October 2023, 35% of the company was actively serving in the IDF. Compare this to the 4% of the general Israeli public, or estimated 10-15% of Israel's tech workforce that have served in the IDF since October 7th, and Eleos' exceptional support for the current genocide is clear.

We must withdraw economic, political, and cultural support for the genocidal apartheid State of Israel, including its industrial sectors, its tech and financial firms, and its cultural and academic institutions -- all of which are intimately tied up in Israel's oppression of Palestinians.