Theyre watching.
They're watching. ER_Creative/Getty

Seattle Times housing reporter Mike Rosenberg pointed out a very dystopian-sounding development coming out of Amazon on Twitter today.


The tech Rosenberg is referring to is a newly patented system that would enable a doorbell camera with facial recognition technology. The system would scan the faces of people approaching your house, and if that face is determined to be suspicious, it would send the information to local police. Civil liberties activists are, unsurprisingly, concerned.

"As a former patent litigator, I've spent a lot of time reading patents," wrote ACLU attorney Jacob Snow. "It’s rare for patent applications to lay out, in such nightmarish detail, the world a company wants to bring about. Amazon is dreaming of a dangerous future, with its technology at the center of a massive decentralized surveillance network, running real-time facial recognition on members of the public using cameras installed in people’s doorbells."

Amazon says the tech is opt-out, but that's for the doorbell owner, not the people walking by. And while this tech may seem Orwellian to some of us, it's easy to see why Amazon would embrace this kind of system: Nearly a third of Americans report that they've had packaging stolen. Amazon has attempted to address this problem with Lockers as well as Amazon Key, a $250 locking system that allows Amazon delivery people to leave your packages inside your house and spies on them while they do it. This doorbell is just the latest attempt not to have to refund your stolen packages.

What's good for Amazon, however, isn't necessarily good for society. And yet, despite whatever outcry there is from the ACLU and other advocates for civil liberties, I'm guessing plenty of American consumers care more about their packages than then do Big Brother.