Sources: Amazon bought thermal cameras to check worker temperatures from Dahua, a Chinese company blacklisted by the US over alleged help monitoring minorities
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has bought cameras to take temperatures of workers during …
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon's pandemic screening program escalated fast: it announced temperature checks and masks across US and European warehouses in early April, then within weeks began swapping handheld thermometers for thermal cameras to move workers through entry lines faster. The new reporting identifies the camera supplier as Dahua — a company the US government has blacklisted over allegations it helped monitor minority groups.
The sourcing choice lands awkwardly against Amazon's own record: weeks later it was reported among American tech firms providing web services to blacklisted Chinese surveillance firms like Dahua and Hikvision, and by 2022 the Tech Transparency Project flagged five Chinese suppliers with alleged ties to Uyghur labor camps in its workforce.
First-order effects
- Amazon's warehouse entry screening now runs on hardware from a firm on the US entity list, putting its operational COVID-19 response directly at odds with Washington's sanctions posture toward Dahua.
Second-order effects
- The finding extends beyond Amazon: over 100 US municipalities have bought Hikvision and Dahua surveillance systems, so public scrutiny of blacklisted-gear procurement will press both corporate buyers and local governments to explain how sanctioned equipment keeps entering US facilities.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, entity-list designations function as an export control rather than a procurement bar — pushing toward tighter domestic purchasing rules and forced audits of supply chains that US companies have kept opaque even after repeated human-rights allegations.
The trend: US companies and governments continue deploying Chinese surveillance hardware despite sanctions, with pandemic-era urgency exposing the gap between blacklisting and actual procurement enforcement.