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Consent to being surveilled or risk getting fired, says Amazon
Remember the AI cameras Amazon said it was going to install in its delivery vans to, erm, monitor their driving behaviour? The company is now deploying them and has asked tens of thousands of its employees to consent to being biometrically surveilled.
The e-commerce giant, however, isn't really giving them much of a choice. They have to agree or they can't drive the vans at all. In short, they have to suck it up or they lose their jobs. Referring to its AI-powered cameras, Amazon said: "This technology may create Biometric Information, and collect, store, and use Biometric Information from such photographs," Vice reported.
The drivers also have to agree to Amazon potentially storing the data for up to 30 days after it was collected. Some have refused and given up their jobs. The cameras developed by Netradyne are running machine learning software to detect 16 different types of behaviour, including everything from failing to brake at a stop sign, or speeding, to not wearing a seat belt or if the camera is obstructed.
See also: Amazon ditching plans to monitor delivery drivers for mask wearing
Amazon has dropped plans to use in-vehicle cameras to record which delivery service provider (DSP) drivers are wearing masks. [...] Amazon plans to use the in-vehicle cameras to monitor safe driving behaviors, including distracted driving. In a recent training video, however, the company added mask wearing as one of the behaviors it would monitor, The Information reported.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Monday March 29 2021, @10:34PM (14 children)
I guess? I'd have no problem with this if it doesn't collect and store information forever and it isn't personally identifiable to ME as in they can use it in other areas and sell it to others.....
.....I don't do things that are bad if I'm driving while representing someone (as in family or a company or others), so i would have no issues i'm sure.
Driving for myself is another issue: i like winter for ONLY 2 reasons: i can get an ice-cold glass of water out of the tap and i can 'practice my hazardous winter driving techniques'...driving til i'm out of control, then reinstating control, lol.
Glad i don't have anything like this going on in my life so i'd have to choose, though: depending on what's gathered and how it's used, i might quit too. Glad i use linux and have control over what i do and don't have issues like this with my boss (who loves me as i've said before!) :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 29 2021, @10:50PM (11 children)
I'm glad you don't have to make that choice too, because its a horrible one.
"Agree" to being surveilled constantly while you work, or quit. I wonder why Amazon are so anti-union?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday March 29 2021, @11:06PM (1 child)
When i first started reading the article, i thought it would be about monitoring that the driver actually delivered the parcel and walked away without it back under his arm... an anti-theft kind of thing.
The actual contents of the article was NOT what i was expecting. It would be nice if amazon could find no one to take the job and actually have to offer more money or get rid of the cameras; unfortunately, too many people need the money and will put up with anything to get it.
Sad, but reality.
I still believe big business needs to be taken down quite a bit: the self-checkouts at stores and wait times at fast food restaurants: they don't care if you have to wait in line because you want to give a cashier a job; as long as they get your money, fuck you. The only way to send a message is spend your money at places that believe in customer service, which big business is trying VERY HARD to put out of business...... :(
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday March 30 2021, @05:29PM
When I read it, I found myself thinking... Amazon is getting a sweet deal from their vehicle insurer, in exchange for providing detailed evidence in the event of an accident involving an Amazon-owned truck.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29 2021, @11:07PM (8 children)
》 I wonder why Amazon are so anti-union?
Because they don't want to have to raise their prices 10%... and I strongly support their efforts at keeping capitalism strong.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 29 2021, @11:19PM (2 children)
And they're getting an awful lot of cheap Mexicans streaming through our borders. It appears that Amazon is going toward the "Jew-run" model, with Jewish executives making the most money while the factory workers don't even know English and factory bosses barely know Spanish. Amazon might be evil, but to their credit they're way better and more efficient getting stuff, even groceries, delivered to your doorstep.
Soon, after they purge the unionist rabblerousers, they will bring in cheap Mexicans by the truckload, and then they're gonna have the customer satisfaction of UPS and FedEx. Smashed packages, missing packages, claiming you received your packages they lost, a cruelly inefficient customer tracking system in which the truck with your package will drive by your house 5 times a day before actually dropping it off at 9pm after you've been waiting on the porch all day.
And who is going to complain about CIA Amazon? Even the most pro-worker politicians have no choice but to bitch themselves up while Amazon smirks, rolls their eyes, and lies through their teeth at our so-called "government." Tangentially, if our politicians want to look like they're in charge, they should likewise sack the fuck up against Zuckerjew, Dopehead Dorsey, and that wormy shitbag Sundar "Pinching the Loaf" Pichai. Everytime our congressmen call them on the carpet, it's still more eye-rolling along with more Strzok-style smirking and blatant lies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29 2021, @11:49PM
Pooped out another loaf too toxic to even convert to fertilizer.
(Score: 3, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 29 2021, @11:50PM
Poor Ethanol-fueled, too stupid to figure out who his real enemy is.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 29 2021, @11:44PM
Of course you do, because you live in a fantasy world.
A flat one.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29 2021, @11:44PM (3 children)
"strong", hah. stop parroting party lines.
amazon could, without changing a single price, give every single employee a 100,000 dollar bonus for 2020 and still be spectacularly profitable, and bezos would still be the richest man on earth, but that would mean... paying appropriately the people who actually did something useful? [[ collective gasp ]] WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE, OLD CHAP! it's been said before but it bears repeating: rich people don't say things like "we want more money", they hide behind lies like "unions only serve themselves" or "there was an unexpected shift in operating expenses this quarter" or "taxes disincentivize investment" or (catches breath) "we can't afford that".
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @01:12AM
You are a perfect example of why America's school system failed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @09:02PM (1 child)
Fact Check:
Amazon has about 800,000 employees. $100,000 x 800,000 = $80,000,000,000
Amazon net income for 2020 was $21,300,000,000
Parent poster is wrong. Amazon could not afford to give its employees more than a $26,000 bonus each.
(And in line with all other fact check sites, the above means that Orange Man is bad and Republicans are Nazis.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @09:25PM
Orange man use hyperbole; orange man is good
Non-orange man uses hyperbole; non-orange man is obviously bad
On a side: Orange man IS bad; and Republicans ARE nazis. (I'll leave in the middle how close Democrats are to nazis)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @03:15AM
I love driving in the snow too -- it's a fucking blast.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @03:57PM
If you rephrased that as "I usually don't do things that are bad", I would have believed you. The thing is that no-one is performing at 100% for 100% of the time. We all have down days. And that's where this thing bites you: on your down day, some moron cuts you off and you yell at them and shake your first. The AI flags that as aggressive driving and you get called in by your manager to have "a little chat" that turns into "we are treating you like kids and so I'll have to 'write you up' for this".
The thing is, these things have no context, they have no intelligence; they just match patterns and then use that against you. Show me where this type of tech is used in favor/defense of an employee as opposed to the company and then we'll talk again.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday March 29 2021, @11:34PM (1 child)
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 [marshallbrain.com]
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 30 2021, @12:37AM
Cool story. It helps to point out that the worst minimum wage employee can only hurt a business a little bit. A mediocre manager can hurt the same business a lot. A crap manager can destroy the business. Those mediocre and crap managers are never weeded out, it seems, unless outside forces do the weeding.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @12:27AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 30 2021, @03:39PM
They claim that it does happen? Be careful with those negatives!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Informative) by deimtee on Tuesday March 30 2021, @01:06AM (2 children)
Managers will still ride drivers about their stats and drivers will still have to speed and cut corners to make a living, but the camera data will be ignored by Amazon unless you hit someone or something. In which case it will be used to load all the blame on the driver.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday March 30 2021, @04:36PM
Definitely this, while it may benefit the driver in some instances. It will mostly be used to push the liability onto the driver.
Insurance analgoue, why do you need to track how many steps I'm getting, what food I'm eating, if I'm taking my medication, etc? Certainly not for the benefit of the person paying for the insurance. While the data may not be directly used (legally) to pump up your insurance rates. They certainly aren't doing it for you benefit except, if it benefits them.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday March 30 2021, @05:32PM
That's another thought I had when I said above this sounds like an agreement with their vehicle insurer. In the event of an accident, if the driver was at fault now the insurer has all the evidence required to sue the driver to recover the payout. (But blood and turnips...)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @02:16AM
Hah! There's alway a risk of getting fired with flame throwers, napalm, and concrete shoes.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Tuesday March 30 2021, @02:59AM (1 child)
Amazon always delivers quick around here, but all the drivers look very unhappy to me. I know they suppressed news about their covid outbreak when it washed through the fulfillment center here, but there's been lots of that going around here.
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @11:55PM
Nobody who drives for a living (car, truck, etc) is happy given the limited or non-existent access to washrooms because of Covid. On Thursday a co-worker caught some guy taking a dump in front of the cell tower cage. Said he couldn’t hold it any longer, ram off.
5 days later, including a couple of inches of rain, and it’s still there. Massive, no wonder he couldn’t hold it. We’re closed next week for Easter, and they’re calling for more rain, but people looking at it cannot believe it came out of a human.
This is a serious problem. Drivers are refusing free soft drinks or juice because they’re afraid of not being able to relieve themselves on their runs. It’s not just a homeless problem any more.