Reported by Camilla Hodgson and Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu

An ex-employee has alleged that Amazon breached UK sanctions by providing Moscow with its facial recognition technology after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The allegation forms part of evidence presented by Charles Forrest in a claim he brought against his former employer, Amazon Web Services, which the company is fighting. Forrest alleged that he was unfairly dismissed after blowing the whistle on a number of issues between November 2022 and May 2023.

Submissions in the case were heard as part of a preliminary hearing in the central London employment tribunal this week.

Amazon denies that it unfairly dismissed Forrest or that it sold its Rekognition facial recognition technology to the Russian company named in the filings. A spokesperson said: “We believe the claims lack merit and look forward to demonstrating that through the legal process.”

According to the tribunal filings, Forrest alleged that Amazon in 2020 closed a deal with the Russian company VisionLabs to give it access to its facial recognition technology “through what appears to be a shell company based in the Netherlands”, adding that the technology was used post-invasion.

Read full report: https://www.ft.com/content/f28377a1-432b-4f29-8544-e5ec7ac1cab9