British company accused of rejecting job application from Chinese nationals; judge: it was based on national security considerations, not racial discrimination
A UK employment tribunal ruled that refusing to hire Chinese or Russian nationals for jobs involving national security issues or requiring security clearances was not racial discrimination.
The ruling stated that refusing to hire people from hostile countries for specific positions in the defense industry because of security risks to the UK was not discrimination.
The Guardian reported that a British artificial intelligence (AI) company with ties to the UK and US defense departments was accused of racial discrimination for refusing a Chinese scientist’s job application based on security considerations.
The report stated that Chinese scientist Tianlin Xu applied for a job at Binary AI Ltd, but was rejected by the software company’s founder James Patrick-Evans. In the end, a British man was hired.
Patrick Evans wrote in the email: “Regrettably, I have decided not to accept your application based on your nationality. As a company, we work closely with Western governments in sensitive areas and hope to continue to do so. We are not large enough to ensure the isolation and security controls required to hire nationals of your nationality at this stage.”
London Judge Baty said on the 18th that the email was poorly written, “completely isolated and looks like direct racial discrimination based on nationality.”
However, the judge pointed out that in fact, Ms. Xu was rejected because she could not obtain a security clearance due to her nationality.
The judge also said: “This reason applies to any nationality that cannot obtain a security clearance (including Russian, North Korean, Iranian and Chinese nationals). The reason is not nationality itself.”
The arbitration tribunal learned that defense officials working with Patrick Evans “strongly advised (him) not to hire Chinese nationals.”
Binary AI was contracted by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Ministry of Defense to develop artificial intelligence that can find hidden “backdoors” in software.
