Before they take it down, here's the video Amazon circulated internally to roll out what amounts to the largest expansion of corporate surveillance in human history: using artificial intelligence enabled cameras on their fleet of thousands of delivery vans theverge.com/2021/2/3/22265…
Had to split it into 3 parts. Here's part 2. These cameras will not only monitor Amazon drivers but also constantly record video to the front and both sides of the vehicle, and analyze it with AI. Amazon says openly they plan to use it to "investigate" things like "package theft"
The AI claims to monitor for things like "distracted driving." We know systems like this that track eye movements exhibit systemic racial bias. We also know Amazon uses "productivity monitoring" software so invasive workers have gotten UTIs cuz they can't take bathroom breaks
Amazon already has more than 2,000 surveillance partnerships with police departments across the U.S. It seems almost certain that they will create easy ways for to share the footage they collect from their fleet of vehicles with law enforcement agencies. cancelring.com
If the link between the cameras and whatever centralized system they are sending footage to isn't end-to-end encrypted, this is also an enormous public safety risk. Someone could easily hack the devices and flood drivers with notifications, causing accidents. This is a nightmare.
Basically this means any time you see an Amazon delivery vehicle in your neighborhood, it will be watching and recording you. The potential for abuse is staggering. This turns every single Amazon delivery vehicle into a mobile surveillance machine. Orwellian is an understatement.
“every Amazon vehicle will now also be an Amazon surveillance camera. And right now there are essentially no laws in place to govern what Amazon can do with all that footage once they collect it.” I told @annierpalmer at CNBC who have more details here cnbc.com/2021/02/03/ama…
.@annierpalmer at CNBC also reports that "An Amazon spokesperson didn’t respond to questions asking how the footage is secured." So, it seems pretty likely that the connection between the camera and Amazon's "portal" is not end-to-end encrypted. Enormous security and safety risk.
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