Global e-commerce giant Amazon has said it does not use artificial intelligence (AI) to track and monitor employees in Australia.
During a recent Senate inquiry hearing on AI, representatives from Amazon were questioned about whether the company conducted employee surveillance in the country.
This comes after the French data protection authority CNIL fined Amazon €32 million (US$35 million) in December 2023 for excessively monitoring employee performance.
Amazon then used the collected data to calculate indicators that measured each employee’s quality, productivity, and periods of inactivity.
CNIL found that Amazon’s practice was illegal as its system could accurately measure work interruptions, potentially requiring employees to justify every break or interruption.
The data protection authority also ruled that Amazon’s system for measuring the speed at which items were scanned was excessive—with scanning activities being counted to within seconds.
Amazon’s Response
Matt Levey, Amazon’s head of public policy for Australia and New Zealand, confirmed that the company did not use similar technology down under.“That’s not something that’s done,” he told the Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence.
Levey also noted that Amazon disagreed with CNIL’s conclusions that its worker monitoring system in France was excessive, calling it the “industry standard.”
“I think our position is that the types of warehouse management systems that we use are industry standard,” he said.
“It’s how we efficiently move products through our fulfilment network to reach customers. It’s how we also ensure safety and a good working environment for our team.”
While Levey acknowledged that Amazon had used AI to optimise its operation, he said the technology was not for assessing workers’ performance.
“There’s no relationship between the AI systems that we’re using to optimise that fulfilment network and the way in which we assess performance,” he said.
Levey further stressed that this applied to workers directly employed by Amazon or other agencies providing services.
Labor Senator Lisa Darmanin then questioned the executive about whether Amazon used AI surveillance to prevent unions from organising activities in Australia.
The senator noted that there was a case in Missouri, the United States, where an employee filed an unfair labour practice charge, which accused Amazon of using “intrusive algorithms” as part of a surveillance program to monitor and deter union activities.
In response, the Amazon executive said such a situation did not happen in Australia.
Amazon Denies Monitoring Flex Partners
As the hearing continued, Levey said his company did not track the activities of its Flex partners.Flex is a service developed by Amazon that allows individuals to sign up to become delivery drivers who operate separately—and contractually—from the company’s full and part-time delivery workforce. It commenced operations in Australia in 2020.
“When it comes to flex drivers, we don’t track their activity in any way. Amazon plays no role in monitoring the work of those people,” he said.
“What we have done is install a safety system in the vehicles, which is actually designed to keep people safe.
“This [system] has been rolled out in the United States for a number of years.”
Moreover, Levey said the system installed by Amazon had “privacy built-in” and other types of protection to ensure it was not intrusive.
“It’s in no way recording personal information. It’s only activating when there’s a safety incident,” he said.
“There is no live feed or audio from that technology.”
