If your boss puts you on a wristband, it can track every move you make and if you think you're doing something wrong, or even warn you with a slight vibration, what would you think?
How would you respond if your boss identified whistling or restlessness as you stopped working and how long you went to the toilet?
This may sound like a dystopian novel, but it could also become a real working scenario for warehouse workers around the world who Amazon has successfully applied for two patents for the bracelet. It is not clear whether Amazon is going to really To create this tracking device, and let employees wear.
The online retail giant, which is planning to set up its second headquarters, which has recently listed 20 candidate cities, is known for experimenting with new technologies in-house and selling them to the world later.
Amazon has never disclosed its patent information, but it has not yet made any comment on this patent.
But Amazon's patent for a wristband involves a global debate about privacy and security, and Amazon has evolved a world-renowned workplace culture with its rigorous management style. Not only workers, Amazon has begun to try hard to promote white-collar workers Employee productivity to meet company delivery goals.
However, privacy advocates point out that things can go a long way even with common tracking technologies. Last Monday, Strava, a fitness app in the tech industry, inadvertently exposed the location of the U.S. military base, Personnel changes in Iraq and Syria.The APP allows users to track and record the movement data of others and view and compare the data of other runners or cyclists in the vicinity.
According to GeekWire, Amazon submitted a patent application in 2016, which was subsequently released in September of this year and was certified in late January.
In principle, Amazon's patented technology is the use of wristbands to transmit ultrasonic pulses and use radio transmission to track the employee's hand and inventory box position, while the wristband can provide 'tactile feedback' to Guide workers to the right boxes.
Amazon said in a patent filing that the technology's goal is to streamline 'time-consuming' tasks such as responding to orders and packaging the goods for fast delivery, and with the wristbands, workers can fill in orders faster.
Critics say such wristbands raise concerns about privacy and add a new means of job monitoring, and the use of such devices can cause employees to be treated like robots.
Both current and former Amazon employees said the company already uses a similar tracking technology in its warehouses and said they would not be surprised if Amazon implemented the patented technology.
Max Crawford, a former Amazon warehouse worker in the UK, said in a telephone interview: 'After I worked in the ground handling department for a year, I felt like I had joined the warehouse cooperative robot team and became one of them.'
He described that they had to deal with hundreds of items in less than an hour - speed was so fast that one day he said he fell down because of dizziness.
'There is no time to go to the bathroom,' he said, 'you have to deal with these items in seconds and move on and if you do not reach your goal, you're fired.'
He shuttled back and forth between Amazon 's two warehouses for more than two years before resigning in health problems in 2015, saying:' I was exhausted.
Mr. Crawford believes the wristband can save some time and labor, but he believes the tracking behavior is a bit disturbing and worries workers that they may be subjected to unfair scrutiny, such as trackers who think their hands are at the wrong time They put it in the wrong place. 'They want to turn people into machines,' he said. 'Robotic technology is not yet standard enough that they will continue to use human robots until now.'
Many companies patent patented products that have never been produced, and Amazon will not be the first employer to do so in the search for more efficient and faster-moving workforces. More and more companies are increasingly moving their workforce Intelligence is introduced into the workplace to increase productivity and monitor the whereabouts of employees.London's company is developing an artificial intelligence system to mark workplace misconduct while another company tracks employees through a communications application.
In Wisconsin, a technology company called Three Square Market lets employees choose whether to allow companies to implant microchips under their skin in order to be able to seamlessly access the company's services.
Initially, more than 50 of the 80 employees at its headquarters in River Falls volunteered for microchip implantation.