Eleos Health is an Israeli start-up with strong ties to the Israeli military. They sell a device that listens in on therapy sessions and uses AI to automatically generate clinical notes. Their software:
- jeopardizes client privacy
- compromises clinicians’ integrity
- proliferates surveillance tech used to support genocide
Health Care and Rehabilitation Services (HCRS), a Vermont community mental health agency serving Windsor and Windham Counties, is implementing Eleos Health software despite the grave privacy risks and ethical issues it presents.
Led by clients, clinicians, and community members, the No Surveillance In Healthcare campaign seeks to sever the relationship between HCRS and Eleos Health.
See below to learn more and take action.
Sign the petition
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/no-surveillance-in-health-care/
Endorsing organizations
- BDS Boston
- Boston Liberation Health
- Cooperation Vermont
- Everyone’s Books
- Free Lunch Media
- Green Mountain Solidarity With Palestine
- Intentional Peer Support
- Jewish Voice for Peace of Vermont & New Hampshire
- Lost River Racial Justice
- Southern Vermont for Palestine
- Upper Valley Affinity Group
- Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation
- Wildflower Alliance
Campaign press release
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.
10/8 Campaign update
Update on the No Surveillance in Health Care Campaign for 10/8/24
We currently have over 150 signatures and counting! Read below for an update on the campaign, including how HCRS has responded (before we’ve even delivered your signatures)! First, we want to acknowledge the significance of the date that has just passed. Trigger warning for disturbing content about the ongoing genocide—skip ahead to the Campaign Update if you need to.
365 Days + 75 Years of Genocide
It has been a full year since the Al-Aqsa Flood broke open the Gaza ghetto gates and Palestinians rushed back into the lands from which most of them or their ancestors had been ethnically cleansed in the years following the establishment of the State of Israel. A year ago, some 1,139 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, 373 of them members of the Israeli security forces. The remainder were civilians, hundreds of them killed by Israeli forces themselves, as the IDF implemented, on orders from the top, the Hannibal Directive, meant to prevent Israelis from being taken hostage by any means necessary, including, most commonly, by killing them. Since then, Israel and its accomplices in the Western media have peddled fabricated narratives of burnt and murdered babies and mass rapes to justify 100-fold atrocities against Palestinians, including actually-documented incinerated babies and systematic rape of detainees, and worse.
Israel has been conducting a full-scale genocide, relying on US weapons to directly kill and further make life unlivable throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, especially in Gaza. Targeted attacks against health care infrastructure and medical workers have been a hallmark of Israel’s genocidal tactics. In Gaza, 986 medical personnel have been martyred by Israeli armed forces, and 34 hospitals and 242 health centers have been taken out of service. In Lebanon, over 100 medical staff have been killed, including 28 on just one day last week, and 43 health facilities have been damaged or destroyed.
In this context, a week ago, we in Southern Vermont for Palestine launched the No Surveillance in Health Care campaign, aiming, as a first step, to get our local community mental health care agency, HCRS, to cancel its contract with Eleos Health, an artificial intelligence start-up with deep ties to the Israeli military. The contract was signed just this spring, after tens of thousands of Palestinians were already known to have been killed under Israeli fire.
Campaign Update
Last Wednesday, in response to our petition, HCRS doubled down on its support for this firm, issuing a memo to staff attempting to re-assure them about Eleos Health.
“Trust us—it’s safe”
HCRS leadership re-iterated their credulousness with regard to the self-attested security features of this device, one designed by Israeli technologists who just weeks ago demonstrated their ability—and willingness—to detonate thousands of personal communications devices with the push of a button. Many of those killed and injured in the attack were health care workers. HCRS also ignores the many times that even Israel’s staunchest allies have complained of Israel planting listening devices and communications interceptors targeting them.
“We already have informed consent to use whatever tool we want”
They also answered our criticism of the lack of informed consent for HCRS clients around the use of this technology by insisting that their intake forms were sufficiently vague and all-inclusive to meet the legal definition of “informed consent”. They then told on themselves by offering a workshop to staff who use Eleos on how to solicit informed consent (months after introducing Eleos into the workplace). That workshop encouraged participants to remain neutral about the technology, while also giving them tips on communicating how “awesome” it is. Of course, clinicians were not encouraged to divulge the associations of the device’s manufacturers or its funders or the people who trained the proprietary AI that it relies upon. That would apparently be too much informed consent (TMIC?).
“We are a politics-free zone”
HCRS leadership also insisted that, as an agency funded through the State, they are able to direct that public money toward the legitimization of genocide, and into the pockets of those who commit it, but any discussion of that genocide would be too “political” and is strictly verboten.
We call BS!
Call to Action
If HCRS’s response doesn’t satisfy you (and it shouldn’t), please continue to spread the word about the petition. Here are some specific additional ways you might be able to help:
Stay tuned for further updates!
If you or someone you know works at or is a client of one of the other two Vermont Designated Agencies—or any other organizations—that have signed contracts with Eleos Health, please let us know so we can spread the campaign there (make sure to let people know they can sign anonymously if they are worried about workplace retaliation—which has unfortunately already occurred)
If you have a relationship with one of the other seven Designated Agencies that has NOT signed a contract with Eleos Health, please also let us know that so we can make sure to keep it that way!
If you are covered by the UNAP Local 5051 collective bargaining agreement, make sure to let your union reps. know you want to see them advocate on your behalf around this issue during upcoming contract negotiations (and make sure to invoke your Weingarten rights if you suspect retaliation is forthcoming)
If you’re not covered by a collective bargaining agreement, and are non-management staff, you still have rights and protections under the National Labor Relations Act! See this link for information about employee rights. And this resource library offers lots of information about organizing with your coworkers.
11/4 Phone zap
On Monday, we’ll be presenting the first tranche your petition signatures to the leadership of HCRS, urging them to drop their egregious contract with Israeli AI start-up firm Eleos Health. Also on Monday, we invite you to participate in a phone zap at HCRS to drive the point home further. Call HCRS at one (or better yet all) of their offices during their open hours of 9am to 4pm. If you have time for only one call, call their Springfield office. If you can’t call during those hours, be sure to leave a message!
HCRS Phone numbers:
- HCRS Executive Director (George Karabakakis) (802) 886-4500 gkarabak@hcrs.org
- HCRS COO (Anne Bilodeau) 802-886-4567 ext. 2127 abilodea@hcrs.org
- Headquarters/Springfield office: 802-886-4500
- Bellows Falls office: (802) 463-3947
- Brattleboro office: (802) 254-6028
- Hartford office: (802) 295-3031
Here is a sample script:
Hi! My name is [blank], and as a [client / resident of HCRS’s catchment area / Vermont resident / concerned citizen], I am horrified that HCRS has chosen to work with a company that has strong ties to a military that is currently committing a genocide. It makes it even worse that the contract is for an AI device that listens in on private therapy sessions and spits out its interpretation of what it hears. I’m appalled that HCRS would enter into this contract, and it’s even worse that leadership is doubling down on it once employees and activists made them aware of the problems with it. I urge you to immediately cancel this contract!
Please remember that the folks answering the phones on the office lines aren’t responsible for this contract, so be polite and ask them to pass on your concerns to George and Anne. Afterwards, please share your experience on social media and tag us, HCRS and Eleos Health and use the hashing #DropEleos
@southernvermontforpalestine (insta)
HCRS:
- HCRSVermont (facebook)
- @hcrsvt (insta)
Eleos Health:
- @eleos.health (insta)
- @EleosHealth (twitter/X)
If you get a particularly juicy response that is not fit for public consumption (e.g., something startling, “unprofessional”, factually incorrect), email us at info@sovt4palestine.org
What’s wrong with Israeli tech?
Israel is over a 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 military 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.
For more, listen to Antony Loewenstein’s Palestine Laboratory book and podcast series, especially episodes 3 and 4.
ADDITIONAL Reading & RESOURCES
Israeli Health-Tech is Making Us Sick (blog post)
This Dystopian Future Is Blowing Up My Phone (blog post)