Own drivers and surroundings: Amazon's delivery vans will film everything in the future

Friday, February 05, 2021

Own drivers and surroundings
Amazon's delivery vans will film everything in the future

A huge fleet of its own delivery vehicles drives through the USA for Amazon. It is now known that the company has started to equip the cars with cameras. They film in all directions, record their own suppliers and the environment on the road – for the safety of the driver, they say.

Drivers of delivery vans of the online mail order company Amazon in the USA are to be filmed at work in the future. "We recently started to install security technology in our fleet that is based on cameras," said an Amazon spokeswoman. Amazon wants to increase the safety of drivers and avoid accidents. Representatives of workers' rights are storming the "surveillance" – they complain about a deterioration in working conditions and fear massive data collection.

Amazon said the "security technology" is based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and gives real-time warnings to drivers while they are on the road. Studies have shown that accidents can be reduced in this way, according to an internal video. Amazon confirmed the authenticity of the video reported by US media.

The cameras are therefore equipped with several lenses that film in all directions and thus have both the road and the driver in view. But they do not record any sound and do not broadcast "live", Amazon assured in the internal video. Nobody can tune in and listen during the deliveries. The company uses cameras from the manufacturer Netradyne. The devices use the AI ​​system to collect data on the traffic situation and driver behavior, evaluate them and provide the driver with appropriate information.

"Mobile Army of Surveillance Cameras"

Amazon must stop this practice "immediately", demanded the organization Fight for the Future, which campaigns for human rights in the digital age, and spoke of a "mobile army of surveillance cameras". As a result, the already difficult working conditions at the group deteriorated further. The US Congress must also initiate an extensive investigation into the company's surveillance activities, the organization demanded.

Amazon is the second largest employer in the US. The company employs more than 800,000 people there. There is always criticism of the working conditions. In Germany, too, there are repeated strikes with the demand for higher wages and a collective agreement.