Amazon employees protest Amazon’s failure to adequately consider human impacts of its technologies
More than 450 Amazon employees delivered a letter to Jeff Bezos and other Amazon executives, demanding that the company immediately stop selling facial recognition software to law enforcement, sever connections to companies like Palantir that help immigration authorities track and deport immigrants, and provide greater employee oversight when making ethical decisions. The employees protested against Amazon allowing its technologies to be used for mass surveillance and abused by those in power, whether in the US or by autocratic regimes abroad. The employees argued that Amazon should not be building technologies in dangerous and irresponsible ways, without questioning how those technologies could have disproportionately harmful impacts on vulnerable communities or peoples’ abilities to exercise their rights. The most important and immediate first step towards positive reform is to stop providing police with Amazon’s facial recognition software, Rekognition.
Author: Anonymous Amazon Employee
Publication: Medium