Balenciaga DIGITAL

This audit documents the publicly verifiable technology, vendor, and data-exposure footprint of Balenciaga S.A. and its parent Kering S.A., screened against the Israeli technology/state/occupied-territory nexus described in the Digital brief. Authoritative databases (UN OHCHR settlement database, UN A/HRC/59/23, Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre) were checked first; broader web research followed, including refresh passes covering the September 2025 Kering/Gucci/Balenciaga data breach’s platform identification, Kering’s payments and AI-glasses programmes, a post-ICJ/ICC-dated recheck of the OHCHR settlement database, and a governance refresh confirming the actual timing of director Jean-Pierre Denis’s board departure. Across every sub-topic, the dominant finding is an absence of public evidence linking Balenciaga/Kering to Israeli technology, surveillance, defence, or settlement activity; this absence is stated explicitly, sub-topic by sub-topic, rather than omitted.

Enterprise Technology Stack & Vendor Relationships

Authoritative-source screening. Balenciaga does not appear in the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s company-tracker content, which records only labour-rights, modern-slavery, and KnowTheChain indicators for the brand, with no technology or Israel-related entry.¹ Kering’s own BHRC profile likewise records only labour-rights and supply-chain trackers (KnowTheChain scores of 45/100 in 2018, 41/100 in 2021, and 23/100 in 2023 for apparel and footwear), with no technology or Israel-related content.² Balenciaga and Kering do not appear anywhere in the visible, paginated company list of the Who Profits Database of Complicit Companies, which organizes 24 pages of entries by economic-exploitation, settlement-enterprise, and population-control categories.³ Balenciaga and Kering likewise do not appear in the AFSC Investigate database, which currently lists over 280 companies (e.g. Chevron, Palantir, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Logitech) linked to occupation, apartheid, or related abuses.⁴ The UN OHCHR database of business enterprises linked to Israeli settlement activity (established under Human Rights Council resolutions 31/36 and 53/25) does not name Kering or Balenciaga in any of three independently checked descriptions of its contents: an OpenSanctions mirror (212 entities as currently mirrored),⁵ a legal-analysis summary of the original 112-company 2020 list drawn from 321 screened and 206 contacted businesses,⁶ and a civil-society letter describing the same 2020 publication.⁷ A conference summary of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s A/HRC/59/23 (“From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,” 2025) describes its focus on arms, surveillance-technology, financial, construction, academic, tourism, and banking sectors, and names no fashion, apparel, or luxury-retail company, including Balenciaga or Kering.⁸ The database’s most recent, post-ICJ/ICC-dated update (26 September 2025, listing 158 enterprises from 11 countries, reviewed from 596 submissions) likewise names no Kering, Balenciaga, or Gucci entity among its retail/apparel-adjacent, banking, telecom, energy, transport, security, construction and real-estate entries, refreshing this absence finding to a date after both the 19 July 2024 ICJ Advisory Opinion and the November 2024 ICC arrest warrants.⁹

Named entities and act record. Groupe Artémis (wholly owned by Financière Pinault, chaired by François-Henri Pinault since 2003) is Kering’s controlling shareholder, holding 42.34% of Kering’s shares and 59.34% of voting rights as of the cited source; this relationship is reported as continuing.^{10, 11} Kering S.A. is Balenciaga’s immediate parent, having acquired the house in 2001 via the Gucci Group; this relationship is reported as continuing.¹⁰ Gianfranco Gianangeli was appointed CEO of Balenciaga effective 2 January 2025, succeeding Cédric Charbit (Balenciaga CEO 2016–2024, who moved to lead Saint Laurent); both report to Kering deputy CEO for brand development Francesca Bellettini.¹² Kering’s Board formally separated the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer roles effective 15 September 2025: Luca de Meo (previously CEO of Renault Group) became Kering CEO on that date, while François-Henri Pinault continues as Chairman of the Board, a continuing, confirmed governance structure as of the most recent source reviewed.¹³ Jean-Pierre Denis, a Kering director since 9 June 2008 and the board’s Climate Change Lead since 2022, did not depart the board in 2025 and instead remained a sitting director through that year; Kering announced on 21 April 2026 that he had submitted his resignation as a director effective at the close of the Annual General Meeting of 28 May 2026, and a directly reviewed post-AGM Kering press release confirms that meeting took place as scheduled on that date and that the board thereafter comprised 13 members, consistent with his departure (alongside two other outgoing directors) having taken effect as announced.^{14, 15, 16, 17} This corrects an earlier description of Denis as “a departing board member as of 2025”: the sourced status, confirmed by the post-AGM release rather than merely scheduled, is that he remained a sitting Kering director throughout 2025 and departed only at the close of the 28 May 2026 Annual General Meeting.^{14, 15, 16, 17} The same 21 April 2026 announcement states that the terms of office of Maureen Chiquet and Yonca Dervisoglu also ended at the close of the 28 May 2026 Annual General Meeting, and that Kering proposed, and shareholders approved at that meeting, the appointment of two new independent directors, Marie-Hélène Chenut (previously a 35-year Chanel executive, including nine years leading its haute couture and ateliers divisions) and Laurent Kleitman (Group Chief Executive of Mandarin Oriental since September 2023, previously CEO of Parfums Christian Dior), each for a four-year term.^{14, 15, 16, 17} Each of the following named principals was individually searched for Israeli surveillance/cyber/AI/SIGINT/military-tech equity stakes, board roles, or personal investments, with the result stated: François-Henri Pinault, Chairman - searched, none found.^{10, 13} Luca de Meo, CEO since 15 September 2025 - searched, none found.¹³ Baudouin Prot, director - searched, none found.¹⁰ Maureen Chiquet, director whose term ended 28 May 2026 - searched, none found.^{10, 14, 15} Yonca Dervisoglu, director whose term ended 28 May 2026 - searched, none found.^{14, 15} Jean-Pierre Denis, director who resigned effective 28 May 2026 - searched, none found.^{10, 14, 15, 16} Gianfranco Gianangeli, Balenciaga CEO since 2 January 2025 - searched, none found.¹² Francesca Bellettini, Kering deputy CEO for brand development - searched, none found.¹² Cédric Charbit, former Balenciaga CEO, now Saint Laurent CEO - searched, none found.¹² Marie-Hélène Chenut, independent director appointed 28 May 2026 - searched, none found.^{14, 15, 17} Laurent Kleitman, independent director appointed 28 May 2026 - searched, none found.^{14, 15, 17} Groupe Artémis’s own disclosed technology investments (Red River West, 1stDibs, GOAT, Bowery Farming, Brut, Le 1, Delage, Deezer) include no Israeli-domiciled company and no defense or surveillance firm.¹¹

Israeli-origin software and services. No public evidence identified that Balenciaga or Kering holds a licensing, subscription, or integration relationship with Check Point, Wiz, SentinelOne, CyberArk, Nice, Verint, Claroty, Palo Alto Networks, or any comparable Israeli-founded vendor. The only directly confirmed, named enterprise-software vendors for Kering entities are non-Israeli: Kering Italy S.p.A. is recorded as using ReadSpeaker text-to-speech (2016), Cisco Webex Meetings (2021), Algolia Search (2019), and - per that tracker’s FAQ text - Microsoft Entra ID / Azure Active Directory for identity and access management (2023);¹⁸ Kering Beauté SAS is recorded as using the same ReadSpeaker, Cisco Webex, and Algolia products, plus Dynatrace (application performance management), Centric (product-lifecycle management), and Smartsheet (2024).¹⁹ [pre-2020] The 2016 and 2019 entries above pre-date 2020; no source confirms whether these specific vendor relationships are still active, so their current status is unknown. The September 2025 Kering customer-data breach described below further confirms Salesforce (US-headquartered) as a customer-data platform used by Kering brands, since both independently reviewed breach reports identify unauthorized access to Kering brands’ Salesforce systems as the vector; no Israeli-origin platform is implicated.^{20, 21} Separately, Kering decided in early 2025 to unify retail payments group-wide onto Adyen (Netherlands-headquartered), a relationship reported as continuing and covering 724 stores across 27 markets, more than 3,500 payment terminals, and 31 payment methods as of a 3 June 2026 industry-panel description; no Israeli-origin payments vendor is named in this programme.²² The same panel description reports Kering is exploring “agentic commerce” AI systems (for discovery, purchasing, orchestration, and compliance tasks) but states no live deployment as of the panel date, and names no Israeli-origin AI vendor.²²

Scale of dependency. No public evidence identified of any Israeli-origin technology embedded in core network security, primary cloud platform, or customer-data analytics at Balenciaga or Kering, since no Israeli-origin vendor relationship of any kind is confirmed. Salesforce and Adyen are each confirmed as embedded in core, group-wide infrastructure (customer-data/CRM and group-wide payments respectively), and both are non-Israeli vendors.^{20, 21, 22}

Procurement and integrator relationships. No public evidence identified naming a systems integrator, digital-transformation consultancy, or IT-outsourcing partner engaged by Balenciaga, nor any evidence that such a partner mandated, recommended, or deployed Israeli-origin technology on Balenciaga’s behalf.

Data-exposure event. In September 2025, Kering confirmed that an unauthorized party (“ShinyHunters,” also tracked in connection with UNC6040) had gained temporary access to systems holding customer data for Gucci, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, and Brioni; two independently and directly reviewed reports identify the compromised platform as Kering brands’ Salesforce systems, with one noting a security researcher’s assessment that the intrusion predates the June 2025 public disclosure of a broader Salesforce-targeting campaign, without confirming the two are the same campaign.^{20, 21} Neither directly reviewed source names the specific initial-access technique used against Kering (vishing is described only as the method used in the broader ShinyHunters/UNC6040 campaign generally, not confirmed for the Kering intrusion specifically), nor the hosting region, data-centre location, or sub-processor of the compromised Salesforce instances; one source explicitly calls the geographic distribution of the data “an open question.”²⁰ Exposed data reportedly included customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, and store-spending histories, with no payment-card or government-ID data involved according to Kering; reported scope estimates attributed to the attacker are inconsistent between sources (one citing roughly 43.5 million Gucci records and nearly 13 million combined for the other brands, another citing 7.4 million unique email addresses across the affected brands), and Kering has not independently confirmed either figure.^{20, 21} One directly reviewed source reports that ShinyHunters presented sample data and chat logs, including an alleged €500,000 ransom agreement specifically involving Balenciaga, while Kering has stated to the BBC that it did not engage in any conversation with the attackers and paid no ransom, consistent with law-enforcement guidance.^{20, 21} No source reviewed in any research pass identifies any Israeli nexus to the breach, its platform, or its remediation.^{20, 21}

Surveillance, Biometrics & Retail Technology

Facial recognition and biometrics. No public evidence identified of Balenciaga using facial recognition, biometric identification, behavioural analytics, or gait-analysis technology from Trigo, BriefCam, AnyVision/Oosto, Trax, or any comparable Israeli-origin vendor, for loss prevention, store analytics, or frictionless checkout.

Predictive analytics and monitoring. No public evidence identified of Balenciaga using any Israeli-origin predictive-policing, sentiment-analysis, social-media-monitoring, or workforce-surveillance tool.

Third-party deployment. No public evidence identified that any Israeli-origin surveillance, biometric, or analytics technology reaches Balenciaga indirectly via a third-party platform provider, managed security service, or bundled enterprise suite.

Cloud Infrastructure, Data Residency & Sovereign Cloud Participation

Data centre operations in Israel. No public evidence identified that Balenciaga or Kering operates, leases, or co-locates data-centre infrastructure within Israel.

Government cloud contracts. No public evidence identified that Balenciaga or Kering participates in Project Nimbus or any comparable Israeli state-backed cloud programme; a summary of UN Special Rapporteur reporting on surveillance, AI, and cloud issues in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Project Nimbus, does not mention Balenciaga, Kering, or any fashion/apparel company.⁸

Data sovereignty and resilience services. No public evidence identified that Balenciaga or Kering provides services marketed or contracted to ensure digital sovereignty, data residency, or infrastructure resilience for Israeli state institutions or military bodies.

Data-Exposure Principle. Kering’s core function is retail and brand management, not data aggregation, so the Data-Exposure Principle applies only narrowly, to the customer data it collects through sales and loyalty programmes. The one documented instance of this pipeline’s exposure is the September 2025 breach described above, now confirmed to have involved Kering brands’ Salesforce (US-headquartered) customer-data systems, which exposed customer identity and transaction data; no source identifies the hosting region, sub-processor, or legal-access jurisdiction of that Salesforce deployment, and none identifies any Israeli jurisdiction or Israeli-controlled infrastructure in that pipeline.^{20, 21} Separately, Kering’s confirmed cloud/identity vendor is Microsoft (Azure IaaS from 2016; Entra ID / Azure Active Directory IAM from 2023, at Kering Italy), a US-headquartered provider; no source confirms which Azure region hosts this workload, and no Israeli region or subprocessor is identified in any source reviewed.¹⁸ Kering’s group-wide payments infrastructure is now confirmed as Adyen (Netherlands-headquartered), covering 724 stores in 27 markets as of mid-2026; no source identifies an Israeli-jurisdiction component of this payments pipeline.²²

Defence, Intelligence & Security Sector Technology Relationships

Military and intelligence contracts. No public evidence identified of any contract, partnership, or service agreement between Balenciaga/Kering and the Israeli Ministry of Defence, Israel Defense Forces, Israeli intelligence agencies, or other Israeli state security bodies.

Dual-use technology provision. No public evidence identified that any Balenciaga/Kering commercial technology has been reported, confirmed, or documented as deployed for military, intelligence, or law-enforcement surveillance applications in Israel or the occupied territories.

Offensive cyber and weapons technology. No public evidence identified that Balenciaga/Kering has developed, sold, licensed, or maintained offensive cyber capabilities, zero-day exploit tools, or digital weapons systems, or that any such tool attributed to Balenciaga/Kering has been deployed by Israeli state actors.

AI, Algorithmic & Autonomous Systems

AI/ML provision to state bodies. No public evidence identified that Balenciaga/Kering has provided artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, or autonomous decision-support systems to any Israeli state, military, or security body. Kering’s own disclosed AI activity is limited to internal retail/payments exploration (“agentic commerce” systems for discovery, purchasing, orchestration, and compliance, with no live deployment confirmed as of mid-2026) and the Kering Eyewear/Google AI-glasses programme described below, neither of which is directed at or provided to any state body.^{22, 23}

Training data and model development. No public evidence identified that any Balenciaga/Kering AI model or platform has been trained on, or granted access to, civilian population data, intercepted communications, or surveillance-derived datasets originating from Israel or the occupied territories.

Autonomous systems and lethality. No public evidence identified that Balenciaga/Kering has provided autonomous target-generation, automated threat-detection, or autonomous-tracking systems to Israeli military or security forces. This domain boundary is noted but not reached: no Balenciaga/Kering product of any kind - general-purpose or purpose-built - was identified as supplied to an Israeli military or security customer.

Technology Ecosystem & R&D Footprint

Israeli R&D centres. No public evidence identified of any research-and-development facility, engineering office, innovation lab, or accelerator programme operated by Balenciaga/Kering within Israel.

Acquisitions and investments. No public evidence identified of Kering or Balenciaga acquiring an Israeli-origin technology company. Groupe Artémis, Kering’s controlling shareholder, discloses a technology-investment portfolio comprising Red River West (investment vehicle, 2017), 1stDibs and GOAT (fashion marketplaces), Bowery Farming (agriculture technology), Brut and Le 1 (media), Delage (automotive), and Deezer (music streaming); none is Israeli-domiciled and none is a defense, surveillance, or security firm.¹¹

Patents and intellectual property. No public evidence identified of a patent portfolio, licensing agreement, or co-development arrangement between Balenciaga/Kering and any Israeli-domiciled entity or research institution, including Technion, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, or the Weizmann Institute.

AI hardware co-development (Kering Eyewear/Google). On 20 May 2025, Kering Eyewear announced a partnership with Google to develop AI-powered glasses on Google’s Android XR platform, described by Kering Eyewear’s CEO as aiming for a product people “will want to wear” and by Google’s XR lead as bringing “fashion and function” to Android XR; the announcement describes “smart interaction” and “contextual awareness” features but gives no sensor, camera, or data-processing/storage specification, and names no specific Kering Eyewear house for the product.²³ Kering Eyewear’s own brand listing confirms Balenciaga is one of 15 Maisons it manages, alongside Gucci, Cartier, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Valentino, Chloé, Alaïa, Montblanc, Dunhill, Puma, Lindberg, Maui Jim, and Zeal Optics, so Balenciaga eyewear sits within the corporate scope of the Google partnership even though the May 2025 release does not name Balenciaga specifically.²⁴ Kering’s CEO Luca de Meo has since given the first public product timeline for this programme, targeting a Gucci-branded (not Balenciaga-branded) smart-glasses launch “probably … 2027.”²⁵ no public evidence identified of an export-control classification, dual-use designation, or distribution-market restriction document for this programme, and no public evidence identified of a sensor/camera or data-storage specification for the Kering/Google product specifically, as distinct from Android XR generally.

Civil Society Scrutiny & Regulatory History

NGO and academic reports. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s trackers for Balenciaga and Kering cover labour rights, modern slavery, Covid-19 response, and KnowTheChain supply-chain benchmarking only, with no entry addressing Israel or technology.^{1, 2} Neither company appears in the Who Profits Database of Complicit Companies³ or the AFSC Investigate database.⁴ Neither company is named in any of the three independently reviewed descriptions of the UN OHCHR settlement-business database’s earlier (2020/2023) content,^{5, 6, 7} nor in a directly reviewed summary of the database’s most recent, 26 September 2025 update (158 enterprises, post-dating the 19 July 2024 ICJ Advisory Opinion and the November 2024 ICC arrest warrants).⁹ Neither company is named in a summary of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s A/HRC/59/23 report on the economy of occupation.⁸

Boycott and divestment campaigns. No public evidence identified of an organized boycott, divestment, or sanctions campaign against Balenciaga specifically grounded in technology provision to Israel or occupied-territory operations. A fifth annual “Don’t Buy Into Occupation” coalition report was scheduled for launch around late November 2025; its company list was not retrieved in any research pass, so whether it names Kering or Balenciaga remains unresolved rather than confirmed or disconfirmed.

Regulatory and legal actions. No public evidence identified of an export-control action, sanctions-related investigation, or regulatory inquiry involving Balenciaga/Kering’s technology sales or services to Israeli state entities. The only regulatory interaction identified in connection with a technology/data event is Kering’s notification of data-protection authorities following the September 2025 customer-data breach described above, now additionally confirmed to involve Kering brands’ Salesforce systems; this remains a general data-protection matter with no Israel nexus identified.^{20, 21}

Israel retail-distribution check. No public evidence identified of an official Balenciaga store, distributor, or franchise agreement in Israel. An independent Israeli multi-brand luxury retailer, Factory 54 (Irani Group), operates a flagship complex at Ramat Aviv Mall in Tel Aviv that the retailer describes as curating “high luxury” designer brands under one roof, and separately stocks a Céline menswear line through its own stores and website; neither of these two directly reviewed reports names Balenciaga among the brands carried, so no distribution relationship between Balenciaga and this (or any) Israeli retailer is confirmed.^{26, 27} These locations are within Israel proper (Tel Aviv), not in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, or the Golan, so no settlement-nexus finding arises from this lead in any case.

Governance correction (board departure timing). Kering director Jean-Pierre Denis did not depart the board in 2025; he remained a sitting director throughout that year and resigned effective at the close of the Kering Annual General Meeting of 28 May 2026, a departure now confirmed (not merely scheduled) by a directly reviewed post-AGM Kering press release showing the resulting 13-member board.^{14, 15, 16, 17} This has no bearing on any Israel-nexus finding, since searches on Denis’s name for Israeli surveillance/cyber/AI/SIGINT/military-tech equity, board roles, or personal investments returned no public evidence identified, both before and after this correction.^{10, 14, 15, 16}