{"id":19743,"date":"2019-06-25T03:22:21","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T07:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/amazon-gets-patent-for-drone-surveillance-system-that-could-send-the-companys-eyes-into-the-sky\/"},"modified":"2019-06-25T03:22:21","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T07:22:21","slug":"amazon-gets-patent-for-drone-surveillance-system-that-could-send-the-companys-eyes-into-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/?p=19743","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Gets Patent for Drone Surveillance System That Could Send the Company\u2019s Eyes Into the Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon<\/a> may soon send drones into the sky to gather data with the help of drone surveillance technology. Earlier this month, the retailer received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a new data-gathering system.<\/p>\n

With this latest patent, Amazon expands its information-collecting reach. While the company rose to prominence selling information (also known as book sales), the Seattle-based mega retailer has gone deep into data collection with its always-listening virtual assistant<\/a>, home-monitoring company<\/a>, and a facial recognition tool<\/a> it offers to law enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the first line of Amazon\u2019s patent, the filing would allow an \u201cunmanned aerial vehicle\u201d to gather data about the places it flies over. The patent notes that Amazon\u2019s drone would obtain data about objects within and around a specified \u201cgeo-fence,\u201d or a virtual boundary. An option to surveil only authorized areas would offer the ability to keep other areas private.<\/p>\n

Amazon filed the patent in 2015, two years after the company first unveiled its plans for Prime Air, which included putting drones to work to deliver packages. A drone program has, clearly, remained a priority for Amazon as the company unveiled an update<\/a> to its drone design earlier this month. No matter the use, delivering packages or observing the environment, Amazon will need further approval from the FAA to get its drones off the ground.<\/p>\n

According to Amazon though, the drones purpose will be delivery first and surveillance, second\u2014if at all. In a statement to Fortune, an Amazon spokesperson clarified the company\u2019s interest in drones, noting that patents take multiple years to receive and do not necessarily reflect the company\u2019s current product roadmap.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome reports have suggested that this technology would spy or gather data on homes without authorization\u2014to be clear, that\u2019s not what the patent says,\u201d said Amazon\u2019s John Tagle. \u201cThe patent clearly states that it would be an opt-in service available to customers who authorize monitoring of their home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s patent can be read in its entirety here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s info-gathering history<\/h2>\n

Though gathering information by drone may raise an eyebrow or two on the privacy front (it wasn\u2019t long ago that we learned Amazon employees were listening<\/a> to our conversations with Alexa), information-gathering is now a prominent part of the company\u2019s DNA. When Amazon announced the Amazon Echo smart speaker in 2014, the device promised a virtual assistant for the home that could be summoned simply by calling out its name.<\/p>\n

The trade-off came in user privacy: for Amazon\u2019s assistant Alexa to hear you, the device has to always be listening. Customers make a similar trade-off when they use one of Amazon\u2019s Ring products. The Ring line consists of home security cameras, video doorbells, and security systems that send information through Amazon\u2019s servers.<\/p>\n

Broaden the scope from consumer tech and there\u2019s even more evidence of Amazon\u2019s data collection leanings. In May 2018, the ACLU<\/a> learned that Amazon markets their facial recognition tool, Rekognition, to law enforcement. The ACLU noted that officers in Washington County, Ore. and Orlando, Fla. had been using Amazon\u2019s facial recognition tech since 2017.<\/p>\n

The Washington County Sheriff\u2019s office has used the technology to help in their investigations. \u201cWe were able to index more than 300,000 photo records within 1-2 days, and the identification time of suspects went from 2-3 days down to minutes,\u201d the Oregon police force noted on Amazon\u2019s Rekognition customers page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too early to tell how Amazon could make use of a network of drones for potential surveillance purposes. The company could very well sit on the patent and do nothing, or the complete opposite and watch from the skies. Now that Amazon has officially been granted its four-year-old patent, we may not have to wait long to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon may soon send drones into the sky to gather data with the help of drone surveillance technology. Earlier this month, the retailer received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a new data-gathering system.<\/p>\n

With this latest patent, Amazon expands its information-collecting reach. While the company rose to prominence selling information (also known as book sales), the Seattle-based mega retailer has gone deep into data collection with its always-listening virtual assistant, home-monitoring company, and a facial recognition tool it offers to law enforcement.<\/p>\n

In the first line of Amazon\u2019s patent, the filing would allow an \u201cunmanned aerial vehicle\u201d to gather data about the places it flies over. The patent notes that Amazon\u2019s drone would obtain data about objects within and around a specified \u201cgeo-fence,\u201d or a virtual boundary. An option to surveil only authorized areas would offer the ability to keep other areas private.<\/p>\n

Amazon filed the patent in 2015, two yea..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}