Amazon’s doorbell could get biometric sensors

I’ve always wondered when scent-o-vision will make its debut in the world of gadgets, but I didn’t imagine Amazon would be the company to make it happen. Given this fact, you may not be surprised to learn that its actual implementation sounds problematic to say the least.

The company recently filed patents suggesting that detecting a person by scent is a future option for its doorbell cameras. But that’s not even the scope of it. The doorbell rings can also be scanned to identify “suspicious” people based on their skin texture, the way they walk and their voice. What could go wrong?

The discovery comes from Informed, who looked through more than a a dozen patents recently awarded to Amazon. They found that patents overall outline a network of strangely sophisticated ones surveillance that sounds not at all intimidating.

One Ring patent, filed and awarded in the United States, is entitled “Neighborhood warning mode. ” At its core, it is essentially community oversight, with few suburban residentscomplaint-on-Neighborhood energy. Instead of your neighbor typing a full post describing a person they think is a threat to the neighborhood – because what could go wrong?all they have to do is share a picture or video of someone they choose to be suspicious to other users in the neighborhood nearby. The ring will then encourage other video ringtones within the network to start filming the so-called suspicious person, even if they are not approaching the front door.

Although Amazon’s doorbell Ring does not currently offer face recognition as Google’s Nest camera line does, this capability has been mentioned several times in the patent, along with several biometric identifiers. From the patent:

Biometric identifiers can be physiological characteristics and / or behavioral characteristics. Physiological characteristics may be related to body shape. Examples include, but are not limited to, fingerprints, palm veins, facial recognition, three-dimensional facial recognition, skin texture analysis, DNA, palm prints, hand geometry, iris recognition, retinal recognition, and odor / odor recognition. Behavioral characteristics may be related to a person’s pattern of behavior, including, but not limited to, typing rhythm, gait, and voice recognition.

Smell-o-vision appears here, which is called “scent recognition” in the patent. However, there are no real details that technology would allow. It is also interesting why you should sniff a person to understand their intentions, although this feature seems to speak more about identifying an individual.

The insider revealed that Amazon has been granted a total of 17 patents related to facial recognition. Amazon said both The Independent and Insider that it does not have face recognition technology or biometrics in its devices or services. He added that any “patents granted or granted do not necessarily reflect products and services in development”.

Amazon Ring brand, which the company bought in 2018, has a bad history when it comes to the way cameras are used to monitor neighborhoods. The company cooperated with police administration in the past to push through her home surveillance devices, not to mention she had her own Neighborhood app security issues own.

Amazon has previously opposed Ring products being described as “supervision”, but this becomes strange because the company is filing patents mentioning the taking of “partial images of a person’s face” or as Insider found in another patent, using biometric data to aid in “prosecution”. Your real Neighbors you might also feel a little embarrassed knowing that your ring-facing devices are contributing to a kind of private surveillance network.

If you are in the market for a doorbell camera, there are many other options now. Our best choice is Google Nest a battery-powered doorbell, which offers locally stored face recognition on a device that is shared only in your Nest camera network.