Employees are raising voices towards their executives to end contracts with law enforcement. After Google and Microsoft, it is time for Amazon in the suit.
An internal letter in Amazon by employees to CEO Jeff Bezos is being circulated asking him to not sell the Amazon Rekognition software to law enforcement. It also asks Bezos to end contracts with Palantir, the data-mining firm from Amazon’s cloud services.
The letter has chiefly criticized the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy of Trump’s administration regarding immigration, the very one that actually led to separating thousands of children from their parents!
An excerpt from the letter reads: “Along with much of the world we watched in horror recently as U.S. authorities tore children away from their parents. In the face of this immoral U.S. policy, and the U.S.’s increasingly inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants beyond this specific policy, we are deeply concerned that Amazon is implicated, providing infrastructure and services that enable ICE and DHS.”
It also adds: “Our company should not be in the surveillance business; we should not be in the policing business; we should not be in the business of supporting those who monitor and oppress marginalized populations.”
Last May, ACLU revealed an investigation report saying that Amazon heavily marketed the recognition software to law enforcement agencies and governments. It added that such a powerful tech as Rekognition could be misused by the law enforcement.
While Mr. Bezos remains silent, Amazon employees are standing up and joining shareholders, civil rights groups, and concerned consumers to call out Amazon’s face surveillance technology for what it is: a unique threat to civil rights and especially to the immigrants and people of color under attack by this administration. We stand in support of these employees’ call on Mr. Bezos to do the right thing. Amazon must stop providing dangerous face surveillance to the government. – Nicole Ozer representing ACLU
She is the technology and civil liberties director in California for ACLU.
Therefore, the employees seem well backed while standing firm against their boss in regards to surveillance tools providing to the governments and other officials. Shareholders of the company have started voicing their concerns too. It is now for Bezos to be broadly decisive on the present situations.
