New trouble for Amazon: The group wants to increase the safety of its drivers in the USA with video cameras in the future.
Privacy advocates don't like that at all.
Seattle - Drivers of delivery vans of the online mail order company Amazon in the USA are to be filmed at work in the future.
The company "recently started to install security technology in our fleet based on cameras," said an Amazon spokeswoman for the AFP news agency.
She thus confirmed reports from the US media.
The system should help delivery service partners to ensure the safety of “their drivers on the road,” an Amazon spokeswoman told
Merkur.de *
on Friday
.
The technology is not used in the EU or Germany, according to Amazon.
Amazon wants to film its drivers: warning messages in real time
The technology is based on artificial intelligence and provides real-time warnings to drivers while they are on the road.
Studies have shown that accidents could be reduced by around a third in this way, according to a video that introduces the technology.
Amazon uses cameras from the Californian manufacturer Netradyne.
They are equipped with several lenses and film both the road and the driver, but do not record any sound or broadcast "live".
Nobody could tune in and listen during the deliveries, Amazon assured in the internal video.
The warnings are triggered, for example, if the distance to the vehicle in front is too short, the van is traveling too fast, or the driver is distracted, for example because he is looking at his cell phone while on the move.
Amazon's new security concept: data protection activists demand an immediate stop
Several organizations fighting for occupational health and safety in the digital age ran storm against this extensive "surveillance".
Amazon must stop this practice "immediately", demanded about the data protection activists of Fight for the Future.
The organization is considered to be one of the company's harshest critics.
The US Congress must also initiate an extensive investigation into the monitoring activities of the group.
Amazon is the second largest employer in the United States.
The company employs more than 800,000 people there.
However, the group is regularly criticized because of the working conditions.
In Germany, too, there are repeated strikes * and, above all, demands for higher wages and a collective agreement.
It was only on Tuesday evening that Amazon boss Jeff Bezos announced that he would be giving up the chief position and moving to the board of directors.
(AFP / utz)
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital editorial network.
