Employees to Amazon: Cut ties with ICE

Employees at Amazon.com are calling on chief executive Jeff Bezos to end the sale of facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies and to discontinue partnerships with firms that work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In a letter, a group of Amazon workers said they are also troubled by a recent report from the ACLU, revealing the company’s sale and marketing of Rekognition, its facial recognition technology, to police departments and government agencies. Workers at Amazon are protesting the recently halted Trump administration policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. “We don’t have to wait to find out how these technologies will be used. We already know that in the midst of historic militariza- tion of police, renewed targeting of Black activists, and the growth of a federal deportation force currently engaged in human rights abuses – this will be another powerful tool for the surveillance state, and ultimately serve to harm the most marginalized,” the letter states. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. The letter, which was first reported by Gizmodo, follows employee-driven campaigns at Microsoft and Google, where workers have denounced projects that provide technology to ICE and to military operations. Earlier this week, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella told employees that the company’s nearly $20 million contract with ICE was not tied to the Trump policy of separating children from their parents at the border. Google responded to a firestorm of employee resignations and public outcry surrounding a Defense Department deal.