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Amazon incentivising landlords in the US to provide digital keys to buildings

In 2019, Amazon announced plans to create a digital fob for its drivers to ostensibly access any building in order to complete deliveries. The project is called Amazon Key for Business, and recently more aspects of how the company aims to get buildings in the United States to allow the use of digital fobs has come to the fore.

To that end a report by the Associated Press (AP) highlights the fact that Amazon are trying to incentivise landlords to open up access, with the lure of free installations and $100 gift cards being noted.

The system, according to Amazon, is designed to make it easier for drivers to get into buildings without having to be buzzed in by a resident or dealing with someone at the concierge desk. The company also explains that it is more beneficial from a security perspective, as there is likelihood that packages are stolen by opportunistic ne’er-do-wells.

While that may be the case, the same rules that apply to a similar system that Amazon makes available to customers via the Flex app, does not apply to landlords or building managers.

To that end, they do not need to inform residents that such a system has been installed on a premises for example, which therefore brings into question security, as any Amazon driver could access any building in the US that features such a system.

Given that these systems are internet-connected too, they can also be hacked, which is a point raised by Ashkan Soltani, a privacy researcher who advised the Obama administration and is a former chief technologist at the US Federal Trade Commission.

“You’re essentially introducing a foreign internet-connected device into an otherwise internal network,” he told the AP.

Amazon is also staying mum on how many buildings in the US already make use of such a system.

“The company has already installed the device in thousands of U.S. apartment buildings but declined to give a specific number. It sometimes leaves a clue, placing a round sticker with the Amazon smile logo on buzzers where the device has been installed. On one New York City street, the sticker was on three of 11 buildings. In another neighborhood, two of seven buildings had the sticker,” the AP story notes.

While the Amazon Key for Business system could indeed make deliveries more efficient, the questions is raises from a security and privacy perspective still need addressing.

[Source – Associated Press]
[Image – Photo by Super Straho on Unsplash]

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