To: Leah Weckert (CEO, Coles), Rob Scott (Managing Director, Wesfarmers - parent company of Bunnings and Officeworks), Michael Schneider (Managing Director, Bunnings), John Gualtieri (Managing Director, Officeworks)
Stop Palantir and Axon Contracts with Australian Retailers
Coles, Bunnings, and Officeworks are strapping police and military surveillance tech onto retail workers. Palantir's data platforms and Axon's body worn cameras, built for law enforcement, are now on people stacking shelves and serving customers.
This technology was built for policing: chain of custody evidence logging, integration with police databases, long term retention for prosecutions. That's not what a retail worker signed up for.
Palantir has been tied to military targeting systems and immigration enforcement overseas. Its Australian government contracts are already being questioned. A Victorian MP has formally called for a state government audit. Axon's retail body cam systems integrate with the same evidence platforms police use, which means footage of ordinary staff can end up in law enforcement systems without workers knowing or consenting.
We're calling on Coles, Wesfarmers, Bunnings, and Officeworks to:
Stop rolling out Palantir and Axon systems across Australian retail workplaces.
Disclose every existing contract publicly, including data retention periods, third party access, and any law enforcement data sharing terms.
Commit to an independent privacy review and stop any further deployment.
This technology was built for policing: chain of custody evidence logging, integration with police databases, long term retention for prosecutions. That's not what a retail worker signed up for.
Palantir has been tied to military targeting systems and immigration enforcement overseas. Its Australian government contracts are already being questioned. A Victorian MP has formally called for a state government audit. Axon's retail body cam systems integrate with the same evidence platforms police use, which means footage of ordinary staff can end up in law enforcement systems without workers knowing or consenting.
We're calling on Coles, Wesfarmers, Bunnings, and Officeworks to:
Stop rolling out Palantir and Axon systems across Australian retail workplaces.
Disclose every existing contract publicly, including data retention periods, third party access, and any law enforcement data sharing terms.
Commit to an independent privacy review and stop any further deployment.
Why is this important?
This matters because it's happening quietly, one contract at a time, in workplaces most people don't think to question. Surveillance technology built for policing and war is being rebranded as "workplace safety" and rolled out onto retail staff with no public policy, no independent oversight, and often no real choice for workers.
This is the pattern George Orwell warned about in 1984, not a single dramatic moment, but the slow creep of normalization: introduce the tool for one narrow purpose ("safety," "efficiency"), expand its use once it's accepted, and by the time people question it, it's already everywhere. Retail workers today, another workforce tomorrow. Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, not a playbook, and once this kind of infrastructure is normalized in one industry, it rarely stays contained to just that industry.
If this expands unchecked, the next workplace could be yours, regardless of what industry you're in. The time to push back is before it becomes standard practice everywhere, not after.
Join this campaign if you believe workers deserve to know what's being used to monitor them, and that "it's for safety" shouldn't be enough to justify handing law enforcement grade surveillance tools to employers with zero public accountability.
This is the pattern George Orwell warned about in 1984, not a single dramatic moment, but the slow creep of normalization: introduce the tool for one narrow purpose ("safety," "efficiency"), expand its use once it's accepted, and by the time people question it, it's already everywhere. Retail workers today, another workforce tomorrow. Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, not a playbook, and once this kind of infrastructure is normalized in one industry, it rarely stays contained to just that industry.
If this expands unchecked, the next workplace could be yours, regardless of what industry you're in. The time to push back is before it becomes standard practice everywhere, not after.
Join this campaign if you believe workers deserve to know what's being used to monitor them, and that "it's for safety" shouldn't be enough to justify handing law enforcement grade surveillance tools to employers with zero public accountability.