Bob CollinsIf you can’t trust the Amazon delivery person inside your home, who can you trust, America?
Amazon has announced a new service designed to keep packages from being ripped off when left at your front door. It will sell “smart locks” that homeowners can use remotely to let Amazon in to leave the package inside, away from the predators outside.
Are you willing to pay $250 for the service?
It’s got safeguards, Reuters says.
Delivery associates are told to ring a doorbell or knock when they arrive at someone’s house. If no one greets them, they press ‘unlock’ in a mobile app, and Amazon checks its systems in an instant to make sure the right associate and package are present.
The camera then streams video to the customer who remotely can watch the in-home delivery take place. The associate cannot proceed with other trips until the home is again locked.
What could go wrong?
Plenty, writes CNBC’s Todd Haselton today:
But we’re opening a whole can of worms by allowing a human inside our homes when we aren’t there: What if he slips and falls? What if Amazon says the package was delivered but it wasn’t? What if the dog gets out? What if the delivery-person decides to stick around and help themselves to a few items in your home? (I’m not saying delivery people are more likely to do this than anyone else, but it seems bound to happen at some point.) What if someone can hack their way in, pretending to be a delivery-person?
If only there were a way to go to a local business, buy a product, and take it home yourself.
