Amazon Logistics will now be taking photographs of some package deliveries in circumstances where they are left without a signature and unattended. That’s according to a new support item on the company’s official site, with the primary goal being to provide customers with the assurance that the package has actually been delivered. That will also enable customers to see exactly where the package was left so that customers might be able to find it more easily. The photos themselves will be accessible on applicable orders via an Amazon customer’s “Your Orders” page and to customer service representatives – after account verification – if problems with delivery do occur. The photo program won’t apply to orders shipped to confidential addresses.
With so few details available on how this will work, it’s worth noting that this could actually have unintended consequences. In fact, it may turn out to be an invitation for package theft rather than a deterrent since a carrier could feasibly snap the image and then pick the package back up. While unlikely to happen or to happen frequently, that type of scenario remains a possibility. At the same time, this doesn’t appear to do much to help customers themselves. Instead, the idea seems to be that Amazon can use the photos as a way to take the blame off of itself when packages are stolen, though that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Misplaced blame can be harmful to the company and disruptive to the process of finding out who the real culprits are.
In the meantime, the practice could leave some customers feeling more than a little concerned about privacy. The company will almost certainly take care to safeguard against theft or unauthorized viewing of photos associated with the program. However, there is no such thing as perfect security and breaches aren’t impossible. Anybody interested in opting out of the program is free to do so and, as mentioned above, not every delivery will be photographed. Amazon says that customers simply need to click the “Don’t take delivery photos” option when completing an order when that order contains the option.