The Israeli Army Launches the "Morpheus" System to Monitor Soldiers' Posts on Social Media

In a proactive step to enhance information security, the Israeli army announced its intention to begin implementing an advanced technological system to monitor the content posted by conscripted soldiers on social media platforms, starting next December.

This decision, according to a report broadcast by the Israeli army radio on Wednesday, came in response to the revelation that Hamas had built a "massive intelligence system based on information collected from the social media networks of Israeli soldiers and monitored them for years" before the attacks on October 7.

This extensive plan will be implemented through an intelligent system named "Morpheus," which relies on artificial intelligence technologies. The system's task will be to track soldiers' public accounts on the networks and examine everything shared, including texts, images, and videos.

The automated system analyzes posts to determine whether they reveal any sensitive information, as the report clarified that the system "operates using artificial intelligence to analyze posts and determine whether they disclose sensitive information (rules, military locations, classified weapons, or any other information)." Suspicious cases are then forwarded to information security officials for review.

When a soldier posts content that violates security instructions, "they will receive an automatic notification informing them that they have breached the rules and are requested to delete the post." In more serious cases, "they will receive a phone call from an information security officer."

The system is expected to soon obtain all necessary legal approvals for its operation. The system will focus on monitoring only public accounts, as the report indicated that there are "170,000 public accounts of army soldiers on the networks." The army also excluded reserve soldiers from this monitoring, as they are "citizens, and monitoring them raises legal difficulties."

This measure comes as part of the Israeli army's belief, according to the report, "that the step is necessary to maintain information security and prevent the leakage of sensitive information as occurred before October 7."

To ensure the system's effectiveness, a trial version has been operating over the past four months, monitoring 45,000 soldiers. This trial resulted in the detection of "thousands of cases raised by the system, and the information security department contacted soldiers to delete the posts," according to military sources.