An ex-employee has accused Amazon of breaching UK sanctions by promoting facial recognition know-how to Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine, The Financial Times reported.
Charles Forrest alleged that he was unfairly dismissed in 2023 after accusing Amazon of wrongdoing on numerous points between November 2022 and Might 2023, in response to the article. The allegations have been introduced to a London employment tribunal as a part of a listening to this week.
Forrest stated that Amazon closed a cope with Russian agency VisionLabs to offer entry to its Rekognition facial recognition know-how. It did that “via what seems to be a shell firm based mostly within the Netherlands,” in response to the tribunal filings. He additionally accused the corporate of breaking its self-imposed moratorium on police use of facial recognition tech implemented after the homicide of George Floyd.
Amazon denied the allegations. “We consider the claims lack advantage and sit up for demonstrating that via the authorized course of,” a spokesperson instructed the FT. “Primarily based on accessible proof and billing data, AWS didn’t promote Amazon Rekognition providers to VisionLabs.”
Forrest was let go for “gross misconduct” after refusing to work his contractual hours and failed to reply to emails or attend conferences, Amazon alleged. It denied that Forrest made the kinds of disclosures that may entitle him to whistleblower protections.
Amazon has denied the rivalry it supplied police with facial recognition know-how, and added in a tribunal submitting that “a self-imposed moratorium doesn’t quantity to a authorized obligation.”
Replace, June 7 2024, 11:14AM ET: An Amazon spokesperson clarified that the corporate is denying it supplied facial recognition capabilities to police, and the final paragraph of this story has been modified to replicate that. The corporate stays adamant it didn’t promote that very same software program to VisionLabs however has declined to offer an announcement associated as to whether VisionLabs obtained these capabilities via an middleman.
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