It takes a few seconds: Palestinians place electronic ID cards on a sensor, stare at the aperture of a small black camera, then walk past panels fanning open to let them through.

Israel is upgrading its West Bank checkpoints with facial recognition technology to verify Palestinians' identities as they cross into Israel. The new system, which began rolling out late last year, eases their passage with shorter wait times — but is drawing criticism about the role the controversial technology plays in Israel's military control over Palestinians.

The military checkpoints are part of a larger system regulating the entry of Palestinians into Israeli areas and even some predominantly Palestinian areas like East Jerusalem...

The facial recognition software used to identify Palestinians at checkpoints was developed by the Israeli tech company AnyVision...

AnyVision published a statement committing to ethical use of facial recognition and defending the technology's use at "border crossings," saying it is similar to what is used in some airports to verify travelers' identity. A company spokesman told NPR the statement referred to the West Bank crossings...

With facial recognition technology, the more images it processes, the more its algorithms improve. Processing images of the nearly 100,000 Palestinian day laborers who cross checkpoints daily could prove useful in improving the technology. AnyVision told NPR it does not "use customer information/data"...