Google AI engineer claims dismissal for opposing tech sales to Israel

Legal protections broken

The claim specifically states that the engineer was trying to raise the alarm about Google’s failure to comply with legal obligations around the prevention of genocide enshrined in international law, and that the company’s subsequent dismissal of them broke legal protections for whistleblowers.

It also claims that the engineer was discriminated against on the basis of their belief that no one should be complicit in war crimes.

Michael Newman, a lawyer at Leigh Day representing the engineer, said: “No one should go to work worried that they might be treated less favourably, let alone sacked, for saying that they should not be complicit in war crimes. This will be an important case in showing the protections employees are entitled to for speaking out about their employer’s actions, and use of their products by armies and countries involved in conflict.” 

Computer Weekly contacted Google about the engineer’s treatment and subsequent legal challenge. “This account does not accurately reflect the facts, and we will not be commenting further at this time,” a Google DeepMind spokesperson told Computer Weekly.

They added that Google would not terminate an employee for sharing their opinions or engaging in constructive debate in line with their company policies.

In July 2025, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for the human rights situation in Palestine called for technology firms operating in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories to immediately halt their activities, as part of a wider report about the role corporate entities have played in the Israeli state’s ongoing “crimes of apartheid and genocide”.

The report specifically highlighted how the “repression of Palestinians has become progressively automated” by the increasing supply of powerful military and surveillance technologies to Israel, including drones, AI-powered targeting systems, cloud computing infrastructure, data analytics tools, biometric databases and high-tech weaponry.

It added that if the companies supplying these technologies had conducted the proper human rights due diligence – including Google parent company Alphabet, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon and Palantir – they would have divested “long ago” from involvement in Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Union push

As part of efforts to end use of Google’s technology by the Israeli and US militaries, a significant number of Google DeepMind employees recently launched a unionisation bid.

On 5 May 2026, the UK-based employees – who are aiming to become the first frontier AI lab worldwide to unionise – sent a letter to management requesting recognition with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite the Union. In a vote of CWU members at DeepMind, 98% backed the move. 

“Google’s staff are right to raise the alarm about the firm’s involvement in conflict,” said Rosa Curling, co-executive director at tech-focused civil society group Foxglove. “Yet instead of listening to its employees, Google has sought to silence them.

“The engineer Foxglove is supporting tried to alert his colleagues to the terrible consequences of Google’s work for the IDF [Israeli Defence Force],” she said. “Together with others, he tried to restore the ethical policies on conflict and surveillance which Google abandoned last year.

“Instead of listening to his warnings, the firm hit back against this important act of internal whistleblowing by sacking him. It is little surprise that Google workers are seeking to unionise in the face of the firm’s callous hostility. Google must change course, listen to its employees, and end its support for military forces responsible for war crimes.”

Google recently agreed to let the US Department of Defense use its AI models for classified work, a move opposed by over 600 employees.

Google staff worry how the technology will be used given the deal could reportedly open the door to autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of US citizens, red-line issues that previously saw the Pentagon impose restrictions on competitor Anthropic.

Google employees have long opposed the company’s sale of cloud technologies to the Israeli government. In September 2022, for example, Google workers and Palestinian rights activists called on the tech giant to end its involvement in the secretive Project Nimbus cloud computing contract, which involves the provision of AI and machine learning tools to the Israeli government.

Before this, workers from both Google and Amazon signed a letter in Ocotber 2021 condemning their involvement in Project Nimbus, which they claimed “allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land”.

The letter was signed by more than 90 Google and 300 Amazon workers, all anonymous, “because we fear retaliation”.

A Google spokesperson told Computer Weekly that the company respects every employee’s right to join a union, and that they do not treat employees differently if they do join one.