Amazon in Germany will use cameras to keep employees safe during the pandemic

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Amazon’s German logistics centres will be equipped with cameras to protect employees from the risk of infection. The surveillance recordings will be able to identify places and situations in which employees come closer together. 

Amazon will use cameras and machine learning technology in its German distribution centres to reduce the risk of infection among employees. The system is designed to capture, on the basis of recordings, areas where it is more difficult to maintain an adequate distance while working. Using this information, the company will improve its operational processes.

To this end, it “has hired the best experts in the field of machine learning, who will examine the possibilities of further improving the safety distance in our buildings,” told “Wirtschaftswoche” weekly Stephan Eichensehe, Amazon’s spokesperson. 

According to the company’s assurances, the system will not identify people, yet one of the centres – in Leipzig – did not agree to use this solution. It was opposed by the works council to prevent surveillance. The employees also refused to undergo temperature measurements.

Thermal imaging cameras in the UK

Meanwhile, in its logistics centres in the UK, as in the US, Amazon uses thermal imaging cameras to detect fever in employees. This technology allows for a much faster temperature check than the short-range thermometers the company used before, CNN television reports. 

We have implemented daily temperature checks at our operations centres as an additional preventive measure to support the health and safety of our employees who continue to provide services in our communities,” said Amazon’s spokesman for BBC.

 Amazon centres in France

In mid-April, a court in Nanterre ordered Amazon to handle only essential products. The eCommerce giant is to limit the warehousing activities relating to the receipt of goods, packaging and preparation for shipment to those that are most necessary. For each day of delay, according to the court judgment, the company was to be punished with a fine of €1 million. However, Amazon has closed all its logistics centres in France, although it believes that the judgment is ‘incomprehensible’ and will appeal against it.

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