Amazon’s delivery driver smart glasses will reportedly take photos ‘almost constantly’

If you receive Amazon packages, the company can now record images of your home and property without your knowledge or consent and you cannot ask it to delete them.

Amazon plans to equip its delivery drivers with smart glasses that will continuously capture photos and video of their surroundings during shifts. These images, potentially numbering in the thousands per shift, will be uploaded to Amazon's AI Wellspring platform. Company representative Viraj Chatterjee stated the data is intended for delivery process enhancement and not surveillance, though he admitted no customer opt-out has been considered. While Amazon claims it will blur faces and license plates before human review, the images could be obtainable with a warrant. There is currently no customer recourse to view or delete photos taken of them or their property. Amazon intends to deploy 20,000 more pairs of these glasses by the end of 2027, building on a pilot program that has already facilitated over 275,000 deliveries.

This move signals a significant escalation in Amazon's data collection practices, pushing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable for consumer-facing services. The continuous capture of imagery, even if anonymized later, raises substantial privacy concerns for customers and communities where deliveries occur. The lack of an opt-out mechanism and no ability for customers to access or delete their data suggests a company confident in its ability to proceed without direct user consent.

The reliance on AI platforms like Wellspring for processing such vast amounts of visual data indicates a broader industry trend toward leveraging machine learning for operational efficiency, even at the cost of potential privacy infringements. This approach could set a precedent for other logistics and e-commerce companies, potentially normalizing pervasive data capture in everyday services and increasing scrutiny from privacy advocates and regulators.