Ethical Stack

Amazon Nova 2 family

Hosted foundation-model portfolio including Nova 2 Lite, Nova 2.5 Sonic, and multimodal embeddings. The flagship general-purpose text/reasoning item surfaced in official docs is Nova 2 Lite.

Score calculation

(5 + 2 + 4 + 2) ÷ 4 = 3.3

4 of six dimensions rated. Unrated dimensions and BDS status are excluded.

Full scoring method ↗
Setup details

Model offerings are AWS-specific. Energy and Project Nimbus findings are Amazon/AWS-level and do not establish Nova use in an Israeli government workload.

AWS documentation and its October 22, 2026 update identify Nova 2 Lite and Nova 2.5 Sonic among current offerings. Checked 2026-10-23.

Energy

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Amazon reports AWS-wide data-center efficiency and energy matching, but provides no Nova-specific training or inference energy, water, or carbon accounting. Corporate portfolio statistics cannot be attributed to a single Nova request.

Reasoning & sources

Amazon publishes AWS data-center efficiency and electricity-matching information, but those corporate figures do not measure Nova 2 training or a Nova request. These disclosures provide infrastructure context, but do not establish Nova-specific lifecycle impact.

No Nova-specific compute or lifecycle measurements.

Training rights

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Nova product docs describe capabilities but do not provide model-specific training dataset sources, rights, or licensing detail.

Reasoning & sources

Nova 2 product documentation describes service capabilities but gives no training-data sources or rights account. Users cannot verify the corpus permissions from these materials and should request a model-specific provenance statement.

Need a Nova model card/data provenance report and rights audit.

Privacy

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Nova is served through AWS Bedrock and related AWS services, so customer data handling depends on AWS service terms and configuration. The product page alone does not fully establish Nova-specific retention or training policy.

Reasoning & sources

Nova runs through Bedrock and related AWS services, so data handling depends on the selected service, region, retention configuration, and AWS terms. Do not treat a product catalog as a privacy guarantee; inspect the applicable Bedrock data controls.

Managed Bedrock controls exist, but exact endpoint-specific retention and training terms were not verified here.

Need current Bedrock data-use, logging, retention, region, and human review terms for the selected endpoint.

Openness

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Nova 2 is distributed as a managed service through Amazon Bedrock; no public model weights or full training recipe were identified for Nova 2 Lite in the checked docs.

Reasoning & sources

Nova 2 is offered as a managed Bedrock service; the checked documentation does not provide downloadable weights or a reproducible training package. Customers can use the service but cannot independently inspect or host the checkpoint.

Managed service access was verified without public weights or a reproducible training stack.

No public weights or full training artifacts found.

Worker treatment

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Amazon’s Supply Chain Standards Manual makes human-rights and labor standards a condition of supplier relationships and describes monitoring and corrective processes. This is a supply-chain policy, not evidence of current Bedrock annotation-worker conditions or audit outcomes.

Reasoning & sources

Amazon requires supplier standards and describes monitoring, but publishes no Bedrock-specific worker outcomes here. This is relevant when deciding whose business to support, while pay and working conditions for the team behind Amazon Nova 2 family remain unestablished. Ask for current worker outcomes for that team and its suppliers.

The Nova catalog explains model features and customer customization, not the workforce behind foundation-model training or evaluation. That leaves worker conditions unassessed; customer-side fine-tuning should not be mistaken for evidence about Amazon’s training suppliers.

Amazon requires supplier standards and describes monitoring, but publishes no Bedrock-specific worker outcomes here. This rating describes the company relationship or supplier policy, not a finding about this particular product’s use.

Working conditions for the people building or supporting Amazon Nova 2 family are not established by this company-wide record. No current Bedrock- or foundation-model-specific labor audit results were established.

Government & military

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AWS funds U.S. defense work that names autonomous systems and battle-management uses. Separately, Israel’s procurement administration identifies AWS as a Nimbus public-cloud provider; AFSC and Who Profits describe military/security use, while the Guardian reports contract terms limiting service withdrawal. These sources do not establish AWS’s role in a particular attack.

Reasoning & sources

AWS funds defense work that explicitly includes autonomous systems and battle management across classification levels; no independent safeguards assessment is published. This is relevant when deciding whose business to support. Deployment of Amazon Nova 2 family or this particular model release under those contracts remains unestablished; consider the company relationship separately from the product’s actual use.

AWS states that its infrastructure supports DoD missions and names DoD-specific cloud offerings. Nova 2 is separately described as a Bedrock model, but no cited source ties that model to a military customer; treat AWS defense business as context, not model deployment evidence.

AWS funds defense work that explicitly includes autonomous systems and battle management across classification levels; no independent safeguards assessment is published. This rating describes the company relationship or supplier policy, not a finding about this particular product’s use.

Deployment of Amazon Nova 2 family under these contracts is not established. The announced credits and eligible use cases do not establish which projects received funding or which AWS AI services each project selected.

BDS status

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Amazon is named as a pressure target in the BNC’s official campaign sources. The product is developed or supplied by Amazon.

Reasoning & sources

If following this BNC campaign is a requirement, consider alternatives to paid Amazon products where practical. Running downloaded weights locally is a different decision from paying the developer or a cloud host; check the host as well. This label follows the named company’s campaign status; it does not claim that BDS separately reviewed this exact product.

This review covers the named targets in the BNC consumer/pressure guide and No Tech campaign, not every BDS campaign, local group, investment or supplier. Lists and ownership can change. A company’s absence from these lists is not an endorsement or proof that it has no relevant relationships.

Israel’s procurement administration names AWS as a Nimbus public-cloud provider and the Ministry of Defense and IDF as project partners. The Guardian’s investigation of leaked agreement documents reports terms restricting AWS’s ability to suspend service, including after alleged policy violations. Who Profits and AFSC describe AWS cloud services in military/security infrastructure and surveillance-related uses; those are attributed research claims, not proof of AWS’s role in a specific attack. Both companies denied circumventing legal obligations in response to the Guardian investigation.

How Amazon Nova 2 family is used in this relationship is not established. The government record establishes the contract and project participants; the investigative reporting describes contract controls, and research organizations make broader use claims. The reviewed evidence does not establish AWS’s contribution to a particular operation, injury, or other specific harm.

All sources

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