TapTechNews June 7th news, according to the Financial Times, a former Amazon employee accused the company of selling facial recognition technology to Russia after the escalation of the situation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict,涉嫌 violating UK sanctions.
The former employee, named Charles Forrest, stated in the courtroom that he was fired by the company in 2023 as he questioned the improper behavior existing in Amazon from November 2022 to May 2023.
In this case, Forrest accused Amazon of reaching a deal with the Russian company VisionLabs through “a shell company located in the Netherlands”, thereby providing the latter with its Rekognition facial recognition technology.
Furthermore, he also said that Amazon violated the “ban on providing facial recognition technology to the police” implemented after the “George Floyd incident” (TapTechNews note: This is a ban established by Amazon itself rather than an administrative ban).
Of course, Amazon cannot admit these accusations either. A spokesperson for the company told the Financial Times: “We believe these accusations are baseless and look forward to proving this through the legal process. According to the existing evidence and billing records, Amazon AWS did not sell the Amazon Rekognition service to VisionLabs.”
Amazon emphasized that Forrest was fired due to “serious improper behavior” such as refusing to fulfill the working contract time and not responding to emails or attending meetings, and denied that Forrest had made a whistle-blowing disclosure behavior that could give him protection.
However, Amazon seems to have admitted that it violated the ban on providing facial recognition technology to the police, but has always argued that “no laws have been broken” because “the self-implemented ban does not constitute a legal obligation.”