As if letting digital giants like Google and Facebook into almost every aspect of your life wasn’t enough, now Amazon is offering to physically come into your house.
The new Amazon Key service, currently being trialled in 37 US cities, lets homeowners give the shopping empire’s couriers permission to open their front door and leave their delivery inside.
To access the service, available only to Amazon Prime customers, users will need to purchase a smart lock and cloud-enabled camera priced at $249.99 (£188). When the Amazon courier unlocks the door, the camera will automatically switch on to record the delivery, which the company says ensures customer safety and security.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The service is “potentially a great option for consumers worried about package thieves, or concerned their box might sit outside on a rainy day,” says USA Today.
There’s certainly a demand for a more customer-friendly delivery system: in a survey of Britons’ top “first world problems” earlier this month, the number one pet hate was having to stay at home to wait for packages.
Indeed, some Amazon customers applauded the trial as an improvement on current delivery practices:
Nonetheless, the concept left many people uneasy. On Twitter, users were quick to point out that missing a delivery was a minor inconvenience compared to the anxieties that would come with allowing strangers into your empty house.
First and foremost, there were the obvious security concerns:
But as well as urgent matter of personal safety, one Twitter user identified a more mundane anxiety that would come with using Amazon Key:
-
Sudan stands on the brink of another national schismThe Explainer With tens of thousands dead and millions displaced, one of Africa’s most severe outbreaks of sectarian violence is poised to take a dramatic turn for the worse
-
‘Not every social scourge is an act of war’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
The Louvre’s security measures are in hot water after a major heistIn the Spotlight Millions of dollars in jewels were stolen from the museum
-
How the online world relies on AWS cloud serversThe Explainer Chaos caused by Monday’s online outage shows that ‘when AWS sneezes, half the internet catches the flu’
-
Amazon's robotaxi looks to be Waymo's biggest competitorIn the Spotlight The company recently opened a new robotaxi production plant in California
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellitesSpeed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Amazon ending 'Just Walk Out' grocery checkoutSpeed Read In its place, the company will let customers scan while they shop with Amazon Dash Cart
-
The pros and cons of drone deliveryPros and cons It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a ... drone?
-
Amazon hardware event 2019: Echo Buds, Frames and moreIn Depth From Alexa-powered glasses to pet trackers, the exciting new gadgets announced at the product keynote
-
Alexa to impersonate celebritiesIn Depth Samuel L. Jackson will be first star to lend voice to Amazon’s new artificial intelligence feature
-
Why is the BBC launching a voice assistant?In Depth ‘Beeb’ will focus on regional accent recognition to stand out from Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant
