[Vice] Amazon Told Drivers Not to Worry About In-Van Surveillance Cameras. Now Footage Is Leaking Online

[papy]

Not exactly selling-related.

But never trust Amazon to protect you. Amazon looks out for Amazon, only. No matter what they say.

Amazon Told Drivers Not to Worry About In-Van Surveillance Cameras. Now...

When Motherboard first wrote about the “Biometric Consent” form drivers had to sign that allows them to be monitored while on the job, Amazon insisted that the program was about safety only, and that workers shouldn’t be worried about their privacy: “Don’t believe the self-interested critics who claim these cameras are intended for anything other than safety,” a spokesperson told us at the time. But this video, and a rash of others that have recently become public, shows that access to the camera feeds is being abused.

Amazon has no (self-)interest in policing the behaviors of DSPs or surveillance companies abusing driver feeds.

[HobbesIsMyTiger]

@papy

Amazon has no (self-)interest in policing the behaviors of DSPs or surveillance companies abusing driver feeds.

This is true. It is also true that Amazon uses these contractors for a number of reasons including not having to take responsibility for this sort of thing. The plausible deniability is built in, it’s a feature not a bug.

[packetfire]

I would not be so sure about Amazon’s possible liability in the right courtroom, as the working conditions to which the drivers are subjected, the schedule pressure, and the route “choices” are all made by Amazon itself, not by the purported “independent contractor” who owns the truck and hires the driver. The cameras are just one more factor showing how complete Amazon’s hegemony is over the driver.

So, if an Amazon truck hits my ready for race day 1952 MG TD as it sits in the driveway being washed and waxed to remove the drool of car collectors and the tears of our rally competitors, I’d name Amazon as a defendant, as they were distracting the driver with their “app”, forcing him to rush from point to point to meet an impossible ever-rising performance metric, annoying him with a surveillance system, and routing him down my street which is plainly marked “no through trucks”. I don’t buy much of anything online myself, so I know he was not bringing anything to me.

Is Amazon being “negligent” in terms of safety here? Where AREN’T they being negligent in terms of safety.
That’s why the Jag only comes out at night!

[AlwaysSLR]

@packetfire

ready for race day 1952 MG TD

Sweet ride!

[dwat0870]

You need to rethink driving that Jag. I have the option of overnight delivery now with banded hours. Some of them can be 3AM. Evil lurks in the darkness! AND never forget, nothing good happens at bar time…

I actually was on the way to the PO and saw an Amazon van in a ‘crash’ with a pristine, gorgeous 1930’s collector car. It looked like they had pulled onto the wrong side to get out and deliver a package. Narrow subdivision streets can be a challenge for two cars so having ‘issues’ with their vans is not entirely surprising. No idea how much that cost Amazon but ‘a lot’ would be a starting point’…