As UK retailers rapidly expand facial recognition technology across hundreds of UK supermarkets to tackle shoplifting, campaigners are warning that shoppers' biometric data could be entangled with the same Amazon cloud infrastructure used by the Israeli military in its war on Gaza as well as state surveillance actors.
One of the retailers adopting the technology is Sainsbury's, the UK's second-largest supermarket chain, which is accelerating its rollout of facial recognition technology to tackle shoplifting, expanding from a handful of trial stores to as many as 200 locations by the end of 2026.
But behind Sainsbury's shoplifting crackdown is Facewatch, a facial recognition company that processes its data through Amazon Web Services (AWS), the same cloud infrastructure Amazon supplies to the Israeli military under a controversial $1.2 billion contract dubbed Project Nimbus .
On its website, Facewatch has claimed it uses AWS's facial recognition software as "a secondary check for accuracy alongside our own software".
This has raised alarm among pro-Palestine campaigners , who argue the same infrastructure powering some of the UK’s retail surveillance cannot be practically ringfenced from Amazon's broader relationship with Israel, with potential implications for privacy and human rights.
“If you let a random grocery store or shop scan your face, you’re basically giving away your personal information to the same technology infrastructure that uses facial recognition to track...anyone deemed 'troublesome,” said Tariq Ra’ouf, a Palestinian writer and activist following the intersection of tech and Israeli practices.
“If we let companies use facial recognition like this, we’re only steps away from the government being able to keep track of everywhere you go at all times, and should they disagree with anything you say or do -- like hold a sign saying you oppose genocide ) -- suddenly, because of these stores, the government and these corporate infrastructures will know exactly how to find you.” he added.
Beyond privacy and ethical concerns, research and incident reports show that biometric databases can be exposed and that facial recognition systems have repeatedly produced higher error rates for some demographic groups, especially women and people of colour.
What is Project Nimbus?
Project Nimbus is a cloud computing and AI services deal Amazon has held with the Israeli government since 2021, shared jointly with Google. It provides infrastructure to multiple branches of the Israeli state, including the military, the internal security agency Shin Bet, the police, and the prison service - all of which are implicated in serious human rights violations against Palestinians .
The contract also extends to the two largest state-owned Israeli weapons manufacturers, Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael, and to government bodies linked to illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
The New Arab contacted Amazon for comment on its AWS, Project Nimbus and concerns over human rights implications over facial recognition technology. Amazon did not respond by the time of publication.
A Facewatch spokesperson confirmed that the company is a customer of Amazon and told The New Arab , "Facewatch has no involvement in, or visibility of, Amazon's other commercial relationships. Our responsibility is to ensure our own technology is deployed lawfully, proportionately and with robust governance, human oversight and independent accountability in the UK.”
This isn't the first UK facial recognition deal to draw scrutiny. In January, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced a major expansion of police facial recognition vans nationwide, it was revealed that the technology was supplied by Israeli firm Corsight AI, subcontracted through UK company Digital Barriers as part of a £20 million rollout .
Israel's military has publicly acknowledged using AWS, alongside Google and Microsoft cloud services, to support its operations during the genocide in Gaza, including for storing and processing intelligence data gathered on the Palestinian population .
Tech workers have staged repeated internal protests and walkouts over the Nimbus contract, with the company firing employees involved in sit-ins at its offices.
A Sainsbury's spokesperson told The New Arab , "The results were hugely encouraging, with us seeing a 46% reduction in logged incidents of theft, harm, aggression and anti-social behaviour and more than 90% of offenders not returning to our stores. Following this reduction in crime, we have begun extending the Facewatch technology to more stores and will continue to assess its performance as we roll it out more widely."
The company did not directly address whether it had assessed Facewatch's use of AWS, or Amazon's wider contracts with the Israeli government, as part of that due diligence process.