Georgian Dream is watching: how AI-powered surveillance is used against Tbilisi protesters

Every evening, when Georgian anti-government demonstrators block Rustaveli Avenue in front of the parliament building, each of them knows they’re at risk of close surveillance and hefty fines.

In recent months, with few exceptions, the road has been closed off in a relatively calm atmosphere. As soon as demonstrators move from the pavement onto the road, police officers leave the area.

However, from that moment on, a different kind of punitive measure kicks in: smart cameras are activated to identify and fine the protest participants.

‘If I lived in a normal country, I probably wouldn’t worry about cameras being able to [identify me], because I’m not a law-breaking citizen’, 40-year-old Medea Turashvili, who regularly takes part in the protests, says.

However, the state sees Turashvili as exactly that — a lawbreaker — which is why she was fined ₾5,000 ($1,800) for allegedly blocking the road.

‘This fine takes up a significant part of my family’s budget. It’s bread taken away from my children’, Turashvili says. A mother of two, she has spent years working on human rights issues with various civil society organisations.

The documentation attached to her fine included a still from an overhead video showing Turashvili among other protesters. The footage came from one of many Chinese-made cameras recently installed on Rustaveli Avenue used mainly, if not solely, to identify Georgian Dream opponents and impose huge fines, fines which are barely affordable for the vast majority of the population.

‘This repression we’re witnessing now is a silent one, meant to replace physical crackdowns so that the broader public is less outraged’, Giorgi Davituri, a lawyer with the local watchdog group the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) says.

‘But at the same time, everyone should be convinced that standing there is dangerous’, he adds, referring to what he believes is the government’s aim.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has never explained how it identifies people caught on camera, most of whom aren’t public figures. But the targeted nature of the process, the police reports, and the pattern of enforcement leave observers with one conclusion: The state is using facial recognition technology and processing citizens’ biometric data on a mass scale — likely violating multiple laws in the process.

The tactic raises a pressing question for many critics: where is the line, and how far can a process go, especially one already well-established in numerous autocratic or authoritarian-leaning regimes as a tool for mass surveillance and control.

The lenses are sharper now — and far more numerous

There have always been cameras on Rustaveli Avenue — after all, it is the capital’s main thoroughfare with parliament at its heart. Cameras hang on lighting and telecom poles and on both state and commercial buildings.

In July 2022, during pro‑EU rallies, a constellation of large cameras was installed above the parliament’s main entrance, which at the time raised questions about their connection to the protests — but there’s no record of them or the other cameras ever being used to penalise protesters for administrative offences. Until now.

On 28 November 2024, in the wake of Georgian Dream’s suspension of the country’s EU membership bid, the authorities met large-scale protests with brutal violence and hundreds of detentions.

The intense clashes lasted a week. Protesters knew the state’s response wouldn’t end so quickly, leading many to cover their faces with balaclavas, while others even smashed street cameras.

Despite police violence and physical attacks by apparently pro-government groups, the protests continued — but so did the state’s pressure, in a new form.

In mid‑December, reports first emerged that the Emergency Response Centre 112 — a department under the Ministry of Internal Affairs — had launched a tender for 30 new cameras, officially to replace those damaged during the protests and ‘to ensure effective security of protest actions’.

However, the cameras specified in the tender differed markedly from most of those already present. According to official documents, the ministry purchased Chinese Dahua PTZ (pan‑tilt‑zoom) models, offering a range of capabilities unlike standard street cameras.

They’re well-suited for targeting individuals: controlled remotely and rotatable, with face‑detection features recognising six attributes (gender, age, glasses, face mask, and beard) and eight expressions (anger, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, calm, happiness, and confusion).

‘The tracking action can be triggered manually or automatically by defined rules. Once a rule is triggered, the camera can zoom in and track the defined target automatically’, reads the datasheet for one of the PTZ models bought by the centre.

Face detection doesn’t mean the camera automatically recognises who the person is, but that it distinguishes a human face (for example, from an animal) and separates it from other background elements.

‘This feature then makes it easier for facial recognition systems to do their job’, IDFI’s Davituri says. In addition to his work as a lawyer, he has spent years monitoring the state’s use of technology.

One of the main advantages of the new cameras is their zoom capabilities — 45× optical reach. If zoomed in, ‘it can, from roughly 40 meters away, read what a person is typing on their phone’, Davituri explains.

When purchasing the cameras, the centre’s director, Giorgi Arsoshvili, noted in a letter to the State Procurement Agency that ‘the type of new video cameras to be installed should be potentially hard to reach.’ And so it came to be: unlike other static cameras, the rotatable units are mounted at much greater heights, making them hard to access while providing excellent overhead observation of protests.

Two months after the first batch, in late February, the 112 department purchased another 100 Dahua PTZ cameras with similar capabilities. The procurement website, however, does not specify where the police planned to install them.

Now, five months into the protests, around 40 cameras are mounted on and around the parliament building’s façade, of which around 15 are Dahua PTZ models. Davituri noted that before 28 November 2024, there weren’t even half as many in place.

Over time, new PTZ cameras have appeared at other protest hotspots and along the routes of frequent marches, making protesters vulnerable even away from parliament.

Facial recognition systems and watch-lists

Every night around 21:00, a group of protesters close Rustaveli Avenue before being joined by the now-routine march  from the Georgian Public Broadcaster’s building.

Compared to the first days of the demonstrations, the laws are much harsher now: face coverings were outlawed as early as December, and administrative fines — especially for blocking the road when police deem the crowd ‘too small’ — have soared, in some cases tenfold.

Protesters have resorted to various tactics to stay one step ahead of the law: they sometimes conceal their faces with surgical masks and hats, and other times with colourful carnival masks, all in hopes of thwarting the cameras’ detection.

Luka is often at the demonstrations. The 26-year-old, who prefers to use a pseudonym, joined the protests for the first time last year to oppose the now-passed foreign agents law, and continues to attend the current rallies. Three months ago, police informed him via phone that he had been fined ₾5,000 for ‘blocking the road’ one evening in February.

‘The chances of that are zero’, Luka says when asked whether the police could have identified him without facial recognition technology.

He stresses that he is not a public figure, doesn’t engage in other forms of activism, and isn’t politically active on social media either.

‘Even when I did go to protests, I think that day [when I was fined] was the only day I wasn’t wearing a medical mask or a face covering. It’s not like the police could have just remembered my face from the protests and recognised me when they needed to’, he says.

Police reports, seen by OC Media, do not explicitly mention the use of facial recognition systems. Instead, the police officers filing the reports refer to a ‘special electronic system’, where, according to their statements, footage from the cameras is uploaded and used to identify ‘suspected offenders’.

Despite the lack of details, as a recent IDFI report emphasises, the actions described by the officers effectively rule out all other plausible explanations, leaving only one: that individuals were identified by searching biometric data — specifically, unique facial features.

It’s no secret that the Ministry of Internal Affairs possesses facial recognition technology.

In 2017, the ministry reported that the Japanese telecommunications company NEC Corporation had provided them with an ‘advanced facial recognition surveillance system’ to be activated on cameras in Tbilisi and other cities across the country.

‘It checks images captured by CCTV cameras against pictures of suspects and others registered in a watch list, making it possible to identify figures rapidly and accurately’, read the press release from the Japanese company, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs translated and posted on its website.

The ‘watch list’ mentioned in the press release is a basic model of how facial recognition systems work: the police have a limited list of suspects and their biometric data, meaning the system knows in advance who it is looking for, simplifying the search process.

At that time, however, there was no public information indicating that the Ministry of Internal Affairs was using the video surveillance system to identify individuals involved in administrative offenses. In such cases, only objects — for example, license plates of vehicles violating traffic rules — were identified.

‘The reason why, in cases of traffic violations, the fine was issued to the vehicle owner and not the driver who was actually behind the wheel was precisely because the video surveillance system was used to identify the object, not the person committing the offense’, Davituri explains.

But recently, this has changed.

Davituri does not rule out that the Ministry of Internal Affairs likely has a watch-list in order to conduct a mass penalisation of protesters, compiled from relatively well-known activists and civil society figures. However, this logic doesn’t apply to the many, largely unrecognisable citizens, like Luka, who have been fined in recent months.

At this point, a different method comes into play.

‘What has already been clearly confirmed is that it’s no longer about searching for [already known] individuals in video footage. Instead, it’s about identifying individuals via the footage’, Davituri says, describing this shift in police tactics as ‘most dangerous’.

‘This is the point where we are seeing real signs of facial recognition systems being used’, he adds.

Among many other unclear details, it’s also uncertain which databases Interior Ministry employees are comparing demonstrators’ images against.

‘It could involve the broadest databases available to them, like the national ID database. The ministry also has its own databases: for years, officers have been walking the streets taking photos, and they haven’t been doing that just for themselves. They collect these images, and later, by cross-checking across different databases, they figure out who a person might be’, Davituri says.

Mobilising state resources to intimidate citizens

The state campaign to fine people for blocking roads began in January, alongside the growing number of cameras at the protest site and a tenfold increase in the fine for blocking roads — from ₾500 ($180) to ₾5,000 ($1,800).

Since the law changed in early February, allowing police to issue fines directly without a court decision, cases only reach the courts if the person fined files an appeal.

Once seen as sensational, the sheer number of fines has now become a routine part of daily protests: no one knows who will be next. According to the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), between November 2024 and 18 March 2025 alone,  ₾2 million ($730,000) in fines were issued for ‘blocking roads’ — a number that continues to grow daily.

For the vast majority of Georgia’s population — where, according to official statistics, only 9% of income earners in March 2025 earned ₾4,800 ($1,800) or more — these fines represent a significant financial burden. The situation is even harsher given that many demonstrators are fined repeatedly, sometimes 10 or even 15 times, resulting in enormous sums.

In March, the Prosecutor’s Office froze the accounts of funds set up to help pay these fines, forcing many to turn to online fundraising to cover the mounting costs.

However, critics of the government do not see the fines as merely a tool of financial pressure. They stress that the nature of the process — including through large-scale video surveillance and mass penalisation — serves the broader goal of intimidating the public.

Many described the tactics used to deliver fine notices as part of an attempt to intimidate as well — particularly in the early phase of the campaign, when groups of police officers would visit people late at night to deliver the fines, sometimes going to addresses where only family members of the fined individuals lived.

‘The goal is to create the impression for everyone, in every household, that first, everyone is being fined; second, whether the process is legal or not, there’s no way out; and third, that anyone can be reached — that everyone is known, everyone’s actions are being watched’, Davituri says.

In numerous cases, people who were fined have complained that they were not involved in the process of blocking the street. Both Luka and Medea state that they did not participate in the process and were effectively fined simply for stepping onto a street that was already blocked.

This pattern has also been observed by lawyers who assist those affected.

‘The Ministry of Internal Affairs often tries to establish an offence without assessing key circumstances — such as whether the street was already blocked when the person arrived, whether they were actively participating in the protest or merely happened to be in the area, or whether they were involved in blocking the street at all’, GYLA lawyer Tamaz Kirtava tells OC Media.

Observers of the process also point out that the state is not only monitoring road blockages through video technology.

In March, GYLA presented footage from one administrative case showing a camera deliberately following the movement of a protester. At one point, the individual turns their back to the camera and begins reading some papers, at which moment the camera zooms in to clearly capture what the person is reading.

Such episodes have reinforced suspicions among civil society organisations that the cameras are operated manually rather than automatically, implying the involvement of specific individuals in the process.

‘This process carries the character of surveillance and tracking, reflected in the fact that operators, not automated systems, fully exploit the technical capabilities of controllable cameras to follow and zoom in on individuals’, notes IDFI, which reviewed 20 hours of footage captured by two ZPT cameras.

The optical capabilities of Dahua’s cameras significantly aid the state in this effort: footage clearly shows that even after zooming in, the image quality remains intact, making it easier to identify targeted individuals.

According to IDFI, surveillance targets include not only people on the roads but also those walking on the pavements — even after protests have ended and traffic on Rustaveli Avenue has resumed.

‘This indicates that the state views the exercise of the right to assembly as a threat and a subject of special interest, using the video surveillance system for the general identification of demonstration participants’, the IDFI report continues.

Concerns over state surveillance and the wiretapping of targeted individuals are nothing new in Georgia.

The ruling Georgian Dream party, after winning the 2012 parliamentary elections, initially pledged to curb such practices, even publicly destroying DVD disks said to contain illegally recorded personal footage from the previous government’s time in power.

However, privacy concerns persisted, and in 2021, recordings allegedly leaked from the State Security Service revealed the surveillance of journalists, activists, diplomats, and clergy, sometimes exposing deeply personal information.

What sets the current developments apart is that surveillance now takes place openly, in broad daylight, targeting large groups of ordinary people on a daily basis.

‘Of course, this kind of surveillance causes me great discomfort and a sense of threat — I genuinely feel like I'm being followed and watched everywhere I go’, Turashvili says while discussing her safety concerns.

‘Right now, I'm more angry than afraid’, she says, emphasising that her desire to ‘express the anger at the injustice happening is stronger than the fear of being fined again or followed somewhere’.

Luka shares a similar sentiment. The fine he received is almost one and a half times his monthly salary. To pay it, he will either have to take out a bank loan or ‘give up all kinds of comfort’. Still, he says he will continue attending protests — but from now on, always with a medical mask and hat:

‘In a way, I even felt a sense of satisfaction [about the fine]. People are being arrested, tortured, beaten — and here I was, coming and going without any trouble. After getting fined, I somehow felt more like part of the protest, like I had to contribute my share’.

‘It directly violates Georgian law’

Civil society groups and lawyers monitoring the use of technology against protesters point to multiple legal violations.

Local rights group the Social Justice Centre stresses that the Interior Ministry’s current practices violate several principles of Georgia’s data protection law, including data minimisation, respectful processing, and fair handling of personal data.

‘Unlike criminal offences, administrative violations do not threaten public order or safety to a degree that would justify the large-scale processing of personal or sensitive data. Using biometric data to issue administrative fines directly violates Georgian law and international standards’, a report by the group reads.

The IDFI has also accused the Interior Ministry of violating data protection laws — specifically for surveilling protesters, tracking their movements, and unlawfully sharing camera footage between departments. According to the IDFI, other investigative bodies need court approval to access footage from the 112 centre, except in administrative cases involving license plate identification — yet, during recent protests, footage has reportedly been shared without court oversight.

GYLA, which released footage of a protester being tracked and zoomed in on while reading a document, also argues that the ministry is unlawfully collecting and processing protesters’ personal data without a legal basis.

Both the IDFI and GYLA called on Georgia’s Personal Data Protection Service to investigate. On 12 March, the agency confirmed that it had already launched two unscheduled inspections on 18 February, examining:

1. The legality of the 112 centre’s use of biometric surveillance on Rustaveli Avenue; and
2. The legality of biometric data processing by the Ministry of Internal Affairs through a ‘special electronic system’ in administrative cases.

The agency said the inspections are ongoing and that it cannot issue a preliminary assessment until they are complete.

The IDFI welcomed the inspections but criticised their narrow focus on biometric data, highlighting that broader video surveillance issues were overlooked. The organisation also criticised the Personal Data Protection Service’s performance during protests, noting its failure to raise public awareness about people’s rights.

Between 4 February and 17 March, eight citizens, with the IDFI’s help, requested an investigation into the legality of how their personal data was processed by the Interior Ministry and the 112 centre.

According to the organisation, the agency declined the request, citing ongoing administrative cases against the applicants. The IDFI rejected this reasoning, accusing the agency of unlawfully avoiding its duties and passively supporting political repression by ignoring the misuse of personal data and surveillance tools for political ends.

Critics point out that the state doesn’t always use surveillance cameras as enthusiastically when dealing with complaints against the police.

RFE/RL recently revealed that when the Special Investigative Service requested footage from the Interior Ministry, State Security Service, and Special State Protection Service for investigations into alleged police violence against protesters and journalists, the agencies often failed to provide it — citing broken cameras, repairs, or other excuses.

Civil society organisations also note that police body cams, unlike protest surveillance cameras, often ‘malfunction’ during critical incidents.

‘In many key cases — especially where detainees allege abuse — the ministry simply claims it wasn’t using body cams, saying it’s their choice whether they’re on’, GYLA’s Kirtava notes.

In response to a request for comment by OC Media, the Personal Data Protection Service dismissed IDFI’s criticism, stating that the claim regarding the narrow focus of its two inspections was ‘completely unfounded’.

The agency also noted that from 4 February to 17 March, it had received ‘far more’ than eight statements. However, it stated that most of the rejections were due to ‘applicants’ failure to specify circumstances describing how their personal data was allegedly processed in violation of the law or to clearly describe the nature of the potential legal violation’,

Regarding raising public awareness, which the agency has also been criticised for neglecting, the written response pointed to the ‘guidelines and recommendations’ it had already published in the past on its website and Facebook page.

The agency also reiterated to OC Media that it cannot assess the legality of the Interior Ministry’s actions until the inspections are complete, the deadline for the first of which is mid-June, while the other is set to conclude at the end of June.

OC Media also contacted the Interior Ministry in the form of a public information request — just as the ministry had requested from us. As of publication, the questions, sent at the beginning of May, have still have not received a response.

‘A state that seeks to control every step’

The widespread presence of Dahua’s PTZ cameras on Rustaveli Avenue may be a recent phenomenon, but the use of Chinese surveillance technology in Georgia is not. Cameras from Chinese companies like Dahua and Hikvision have long been purchased by various Georgian state bodies — including ministries, municipal governments, educational institutions, as well as private companies.

Given that Chinese cameras dominate the global market, this fact may not come as a surprise. However, growing concerns surrounding Chinese technology add complexity to the situation.

Over the past few years, numerous governments, including those of the UK, Canada, and South Korea, have introduced various restrictions on Chinese-made cameras, citing national security concerns. In 2022, the US went further, banning any new video surveillance and telecommunications equipment produced by Dahua and Hikvision entirely, deeming them a risk to national security.

Among the main concerns regarding these companies are their ties to the Chinese government and their use in the identification and repression of the Uyghur ethnic minority, as well as political dissenters. Another major issue is their high vulnerability to cyberattacks — a growing concern in Ukraine, where Chinese cameras have been widely installed amidst the full-scale Russian invasion.

Furthermore, under China’s National Intelligence Law, Dahua and Hikvision — like all Chinese companies — are legally obligated to provide any requested data to the state if deemed necessary for security purposes.

‘There are countries where this might not be a problem, given that they’re not on the frontline and don’t have a hostile state that is also China’s major strategic partner’, Tina Khidasheli, Georgia’s former Defence Minister and founder of the local organisation Civic Idea, which monitors growing Georgia-China relations, says.

‘But in our case, the main threat still comes from Russia, especially considering the close China-Russia cooperation, particularly when it comes to Russia’s military operations’, she adds.

Khidasheli does not rule out that Georgian state institutions may have purchased Chinese cameras simply because they are the market leader. However, in her view, the issue lies elsewhere.

‘When the majority of our traditional international partners remove these cameras from use and point to specific security risks — and meanwhile, the Georgian Ministry of Defense purchases cameras from the same company to install on its own premises — that’s a major red flag’, she adds.

‘By doing so, the ministry disregards legitimate, well-substantiated risks that NATO member states have publicly raised’, Khidasheli says.

With the rapid progress of technology, concerns about citizen surveillance are growing worldwide, including in consolidated democracies. Calls to limit or ban its use by police and other state agencies in public spaces have increased.

There are already examples of governments deploying facial recognition technology for tracking opponents. Besides China, this has occurred in Russia, where it targets Kremlin opponents, and in Iran, where the system is used to identify women violating the hijab law.  In the West Bank, numerous reports have documented the extensive surveillance of Palestinians by Israeli authorities, including by CCTV and facial recognition networks.

In Georgia, the mass use of this technology to fine protesters is raising similar concerns.

‘This is typical terrorism, an attempt to build a police state. A state that seeks to control every step, word, and perhaps even thought of its citizens — though, I don’t know if we’ll reach that level’, Turashvili says, describing Georgian Dream policies.

Davituri, meanwhile, acknowledges that the state aims to control citizens but stresses that it does not yet have the means for total control.

‘The state not only seeks control but also wants to create the illusion of control, spreading myths that it sees everything and knows if anyone takes a step against the Georgian Dream. We can say that on Rustaveli Avenue, it controls a lot, but it’s not the same everywhere’, he adds.

Davituri believes that the Georgian state lacks sufficient hardware for mass control. However, he emphasises that Georgian Dream desires it, especially as technology advances and becomes cheaper.

He also points out that the state’s current focus on protesters in central Tbilisi is unlikely to remain a permanent condition. Over time, both its interest and appetite for control will grow.

‘Today, this group is seen as a threat by the state, but tomorrow something else will be. Once this group is neutralised, the main target will be everyone. Every person must be monitored — everyone, by default, is a potential threat’, he concludes.