Amazon Tracking Employees?

In what seems something horrific, Amazon tracking employees is not so positive and positive. Hear us out. Amazon have patented designs for smart wristbands to put on their warehouse employees. The intent is to help their warehouse employees locate products that their computers tell them to locate. To them put them into boxes to then send products to your homes. As an employee wanders around a warehouse full of thousands of products the wristbands will then vibrate to inform them whether to go left or right for example.

Privacy

While this sounds like a fairly harmless piece of tech, there is a glaring worry that this will affect an Amazon warehouse employee’s privacy. As it can detect your location within a warehouse, it could detect when your taking a quick cigarette break when you shouldn’t. It would also be able to detect how long your taking when collecting a customer’s order. Amazon as a company have a right to sack an employee who takes too long collecting orders and takes regular breaks when they shouldn’t. Afterall time is money.

As Amazon have access to all this data, they could get a whole lot of information based around you as a worker. Rather than you as a person. Which has to be taken into regard in regards to whether or not you’re hired. We as humans aren’t just numbers. You may not be the greatest worker, but your work ethic and ability to get on well with others would trump your ability. Unless your terrible. Yet, by just looking at people as just a number and a bunch of data. That is what people are in danger of becoming. A number. Also you’d become almost robotic.

The idea behind the Amazon wristband for employees seems like it would make an employees life easier. However with all of the data available from simple location data, it’s very dangerous what could be done with it.

What are Amazon going to do with it? Who knows. But as time goes on and robots are taking over people’s jobs, are we becoming closer to robots than we would like to think?

To listen to the guys discussing this on the podcast please click here!

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