Ex-Amazon employee Charles Forrest said that the company violated UK sanctions by continuing to supply its facial recognition technology to the Russian company VisionLabs after the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine. The Financial Times writes about this, citing materials from the court hearing.
Forrest filed a lawsuit against his former employer Amazon Web Services, in which he claims that he was unfairly fired after he raised concerns about the company's alleged violations . According to a former employee, a Dutch «front» company linked to Russia's VisionLabs was contracted to use Amazon Rekognition back in 2020.
The company itself considers Forrest's claims to be unfounded. At a preliminary hearing in a London court, her representative said Amazon did not provide VisionLabs with access to a facial recognition service, citing existing accounts.
According to the employer, Forrest was fired for gross disciplinary violation after he refused to work the hours required under the contract, did not attend a number of meetings and did not respond to emails, according to court materials.
Forrest claims that he reported the alleged illegal activity to the Serious Fraud Office in May 2023.
Using a facial recognition system, security forces are searching for and pursuing protest participants. Algorithm VisionLabs is used by the Moscow authorities. Among the clients of the company, which has been owned by MTS since 2021, are banks and the Moscow metro. MTS Bank, which is under UK sanctions, also uses the technology.
In February 2023, the United States included VisionLabs on the sanctions list. Later, it abandoned the parent company in the Netherlands, which owned a subsidiary in Russia.