Iranian authorities may be using new technology to help enforce the country's strict dress code for women, expanding the use of facial recognition technology to issue fines and other penalties for those breaking the rules.

"Many people haven't been arrested in the streets," Shaparak Shajarizadeh, who fled from Iran to Canada in 2018 after multiple violations of Iran's strict laws and became an activist, told Wired in a report Tuesday. "They were arrested at their homes one or two days later."

Shajarizadeh is one of several observers of Iran who fear that the country's Islamist regime has begun to weaponize facial recognition technology to find and punish women who flaunt laws about their dress and appearance in public, a setback for activists amid months of protesting for women's rights and regime change.

The fears that Iran could be using the technology come a year after such a system was proposed by Iranian lawmakers. Their calls were heard by the head of the government agency responsible for enforcing morality laws, who in a September interview said facial recognition would be used "to identify inappropriate and unusual movements," and a "failure to observe hijab laws."

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Mahsa Alimardani, a University of Oxford researcher who focuses on freedom of expression in Iran, believes there is evidence that the technology is already in use. Speaking to Wired, she cited multiple reports of women who have received citations in the mail for violations of the hijab law despite not having any interactions with law enforcement.

While there could be other explanations for how the women we caught in violation of the law, Alimardani pointed out that the regime has spent years building a biometric database of all citizens, which includes face scans. 

For years, Iran has used monitoring of social media and automated digital surveillance to enforce laws and target critics of the regime, distancing itself from the types of physical patrols that eventually sparked months of protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody.

While Iran reportedly cut back on or abolished the morality police amid the outrage, this was seen by some as a victory for activists. Others noted that Iran could step up its use of technology to fill the void.

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Facial recognition has become a desired tool for authoritarian regimes across the globe in recent years, but not every country has the resources to implement it effectively. That would not be a problem for Iran, which has the technical infrastructure for widespread surveillance.

"Iran is a case where they have both the governmental will and the physical capability," Cathryn Grothe, a research analyst at Freedom House, told Wired.

Perhaps the most infamous example of widespread use of facial recognition technology is China, which has long used similar technologies to track its citizens and stamp out dissent. The Iranian regime may be benefiting from the Chinese experience to build its own program, purchasing much of its surveillance technology from Chinese camera and artificial intelligence company Tiandy.

Tiandy, one of the largest security camera manufacturers in the world, makes the bulk of its sales in China, but in recent years listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian police and government agencies as customers on its website.

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Last month, the U.S. Department of Commerce sanctioned Tiandy for its role in the oppression of China's Uyghur Muslims and using technology developed in the U.S. to sell to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Intel, at one time, was one of the U.S. companies selling technology to Tianady but said last month that it had ended its relationship with the company.

However, the Iranian regime has already put technology to use, with the country's traffic enforcement agency installing facial recognition systems in 2020 to issue fines for traffic violations. The technology has also been reportedly used to help enforce the country's dress code as well, with women receiving text messages warning them about wearing a hijab while in vehicles.

Iranian leaders have also hinted at new types of penalties for those who break the rules, something they believe facial recognition technology can help them enforce while lessening the risks that citizens have negative interactions with police. 

Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, who is the head of the country’s parliamentary legal and judicial committee, said last year that he supported penalties that include "exclusion from social services and financial fines'' for hijab violations.

"The use of face recording cameras can systematically implement this task and reduce the presence of the police, as a result of which there will be no more clashes between the police and citizens," he said in an interview with Iranian media.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a conservative Republican and rising star within the party, is vowing to stand against the "excesses of the Biden administration" in his quest to unseat vulnerable Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in this year's gubernatorial election.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Cameron touted his record fighting against the fentanyl crisis plaguing the state and Democrats' controversial vaccine mandates, as well as his opposition to Biden's environmental policies, arguing it was proof he was the "best option" of the 12 Republican candidates vying for the party's nomination to take on Beshear.

"Well, I'm the best option because I fully believe that the proof is in the pudding," Cameron told Fox. "We have done our job without fear or favor over these last three years. We've stood up to the Biden administration when it came to the vaccine mandates that they were trying to force on the states."

"We stood up for energy industry and asking the Biden administration to label fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction, we've asked for the border to be secured, I've held companies accountable for the opioid epidemic and bringing over $800 million to the Commonwealth, and of course, we continue to fight to stand up for the constitutional values of our citizens," he added.

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The crowded field of Republicans facing Cameron includes former U.N. Ambassador Kelly Craft, state auditor Mike Harmon and Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles. 

Cameron was among the first of the candidates to jump into the race last May, and said his decision to do so was driven by his view Kentucky needed a governor that "says yes" to its citizens.

"My wife and I fully believe in the work that we've done over these last three years to stand up for conservative values and constitutional rights and principles," he said. "We think Kentucky needs a governor that not only says yes to economic development and says yes to helping people in the midst of a pandemic or a crisis, flooding or tornadoes, but also says yes to the shared values of the men, women and children of all 120 counties."

"That's what we've been doing over these last three years, is standing up for those shared values. And we need to restore common sense and fair play to our governor's office. And that's what I'm going to do," he added.

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Cameron has been sharply critical of Biden's environmental policies, including what he says is the overregulation of air quality standards and efforts to limit domestic energy production amidst the rising cost of energy.

He has also firmly pushed back on Beshear's approach to a number of issues he says do not reflect the values of everyday Kentuckians, including on the state's energy industry, the coronavirus pandemic, and standing up for law enforcement. He vowed such areas would be the first he would take action on should he win in November.

"The first action that I would take is to make sure that you have a governor that is going to, again, stand up for those constitutional rights. You're going to have a governor that is going to stand up and support the men and women of our law enforcement community. You're going to have a governor that is going to use the bully pulpit of the governor's office to make sure that we are standing up to the excesses of the Biden administration," he said.

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"You're also going to have a governor that respects and shares your values, not a governor that's going to shut down churches or small businesses, not a governor that is going to sit idly by as a Department of Justice labels parents domestic terrorists," Cameron said. "You're not going to have a governor that allows for our coal and natural gas industry to be talked bad about and denigrated by the Biden administration that wants to destroy it. You're going to have, again, a governor that's going to stand up for the values of the commonwealth."

Cameron will face his opponents in the Republican primary scheduled for Tuesday, May 16, when the winner will likely face Beshear in the November general election should he win the Democratic primary.