Amazon Taking Photos of Your Front Door

[Palanan]

Apparently this has been going on for a while, but today was the first time that I received a photo of my front door as part of my order confirmation.

Is there a way to opt out of this? I've looked and looked, but can't find anything, and wanted to ask about it before I plunge into yet another customer service experience with Amazon.

[halfeye]

Amazon having photos of everyone's front doors is very bad on the personal privacy front, and no company or government department should be allowed to do that.

I suppose their theory might be that if they have deliverer's making false claims to have delivered items, or customers claiming not to have received items that they actually did receive, this might go some way to finding out where the fault lies, but the costs in potential intrusions into people's privacy are far beyond the value of the money they wouldn't lose in lost deliveries.

[Peelee]

Amazon having photos of everyone's front doors is very bad on the personal privacy front, and no company or government department should be allowed to do that.

Nobody tell Halfeye about Google Maps.

[DataNinja]

Nobody tell Halfeye about Google Maps.

The difference there is that Google Maps doesn't (as far as I know) associate the picture of your house with your personal information.

[Peelee]

The difference there is that Google Maps doesn't (as far as I know) associate the picture of your house with your personal information.

Not openly, at least. Color me a skeptic on Google's separation of personal info.

[factotum]

Is this actually Amazon, though, or a delivery company contracted by them? For instance, my mother bought an Ikea desk the other day, and the "we couldn't deliver because you were out" e-mail included a picture of a front door. It wasn't actually my mother's front door, because they'd gone to the wrong house, but that picture came courtesy of DPD (the company actually delivering the item), not Ikea themselves.

[Bohandas]

Is this actually Amazon, though, or a delivery company contracted by them? For instance, my mother bought an Ikea desk the other day, and the "we couldn't deliver because you were out" e-mail included a picture of a front door. It wasn't actually my mother's front door, because they'd gone to the wrong house, but that picture came courtesy of DPD (the company actually delivering the item), not Ikea themselves.

And that's part of the reason why they take the picture. So you can tell them they've screwed up and gotten the wrong house.

(the other part is for liability purposes. To prove it was delivered if it does get there, so they can't be blamed if someone steals it off your doorstep)

Also, I don't have a problem with this. Since when is it not ok to take photos that have buildings you don't own in them?

EDIT:
What your front door looks like is pretty much public by definition, unless you live in a mansion with a gate or something (and even then what the gate looks like isn't private)

[Florian]

Nobody tell Halfeye about Google Maps.

Google Maps / Street View has been nuked pretty hard for unwanted intrusion into the privacy sphere. Lo and behold, in some countries, the closest zoom level simply does not exist, unless someone opted in, mostly companies.

As for the overall topic, Amazon is apparently trying to get a grip on their own source of success. Packet delivery is maybe one of the worst paid jobs in the world, with "smart" deliverers not being above robbing the good stuff (smartphones and such), while "smart" customers tend to order something expensive and then fake the packet being lost. It looks like they try to handle both issues in one go by having the delivery person make a photo of the delivered packet.

[Peelee]

Google Maps / Street View has been nuked pretty hard for unwanted intrusion into the privacy sphere. Lo and behold, in some countries, the closest zoom level simply does not exist, unless someone opted in, mostly companies.

As for the overall topic, Amazon is apparently trying to get a grip on their own source of success. Packet delivery is maybe one of the worst paid jobs in the world, with "smart" deliverers not being above robbing the good stuff (smartphones and such), while "smart" customers tend to order something expensive and then fake the packet being lost. It looks like they try to handle both issues in one go by having the delivery person make a photo of the delivered packet.

"smart" deliverer: place package in front of door, take picture, take package.

Both issues, you say?

[Florian]

"smart" deliverer: place package in front of door, take picture, take package.

Both issues, you say?

It´s Amazon, what do you expect?

[halfeye]

Nobody tell Halfeye about Google Maps.

I try to not use google. They are probably worse than Amazon, and they are definitely included in "no company" above.

[Peelee]

It´s Amazon, what do you expect?

What I want to expect and what I do expect are sadly very different.

[Bohandas]

I try to not use google. They are probably worse than Amazon, and they are definitely included in "no company" above.

Do you use facebook? They're the worst of them all


EDIT:
also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOtKAtJhx50#t=00m45s

[halfeye]

Do you use facebook? They're the worst of them all

No.

Do you?

[Bohandas]

Nope, but from what I can gather everyone else does. Even elderly people from ye olde pre-internet times.

[Erloas]

Google maps has almost every house and the address already saved away. While they did remove street view from most residential areas it still shows the house if you navigate to there. Maybe other ways to get it too, but I know that's active at very least. They don't directly give any info on who lives at any given address, but that is a very easy thing to link because by design any order you make has your name and address.

As someone else said, the outside of your house isn't really private. It can easily be seen and photographed by anyone who cares to go down the street.

[tomandtish]

Yeah, the expectation of privacy for your front door is probably stretching it. As noted earlier, anyone can walk down the street and take pictures of your house, your car in the driveway, etc. and they aren't breaking any law.

We have a service that clean up dog poo in the yard. They come once a week. When they leave they take a picture of the gate and email it to us to verify they closed the gate so the dogs don't get out.

[2D8HP]

Nope, but from what I can gathher everyone else does. Even elderly people from ye olde pre-internet times.

FWLIW, I'm 50 years old and I have never "logged onto" Facebook, but my brother (who is 47) says he has.

Make of that what you will.

[factotum]

If we're going by anecdotal evidence, my mother (82) is on Facebook while myself (48) am not.

[halfeye]

As someone else said, the outside of your house isn't really private. It can easily be seen and photographed by anyone who cares to go down the street.

I suspect that's going to have to change. There have been times, when almost nobody travelled further than the next village, five miles away at most, and almost everybody knew almost everybody else.

These days, a common type of attack is publishing someone's name and address.

The really bad thing is combining name and address, but photographs of your front door coupled with your name are a significant threat.

There was a time in the not very distant past at all, when databases weren't big enough to have all the addresses for the whole country, but now they are, and in time the law is going to have to deal with that problem.

[warty goblin]

I'm about 32, and only 'on' Facebook in a vestigial sort of way; it's the appendix of my internet life.

[Knaight]

These days, a common type of attack is publishing someone's name and address.

The really bad thing is combining name and address, but photographs of your front door coupled with your name are a significant threat.

The threat relies on some fairly specific contest - and when the context is you giving them your address so they can go to your house and drop off a package the threat is gone. Meanwhile the concern of some sort of database getting used is also questionable. Pictures aren't searchable, and far more useful databases (name and address) with lower security exist.

[Bohandas]

Nobody tell Halfeye about Google Maps.

Forget Google Maps, anyone with a cellphone can take a picture of your front door

[factotum]

I'm about 32

You're not sure of your age?

[Cazero]

You're not sure of your age?

Or he's not exactly 32. We humans tend to skip the decimal point on age.

[Peelee]

Yeah, the expectation of privacy for your front door is probably stretching it. As noted earlier, anyone can walk down the street and take pictures of your house, your car in the driveway

Not if I always park in the garage they can't. You'll make me park in the driveway over my cold dead body, I tells ya!

These days, a common type of attack is publishing someone's name and address.

The really bad thing is combining name and address.

...like a phone book?

There was a time in the not very distant past at all, when databases weren't big enough to have all the addresses for the whole country, but now they are, and in time the law is going to have to deal with that problem.

Did you guys really not have phone books in England?

[Cazero]

Did you guys really not have phone books in England?

Hoooo, so that's how the Terminator found Sarah Connor.

[Aedilred]

Not if I always park in the garage they can't. You'll make me park in the driveway over my cold dead body, I tells ya!

...like a phone book?

Did you guys really not have phone books in England?

We did, though, as in the US, they were local rather than national.

This is the sort of development which immediately sets off my creepy Big Brother alert but in practice doesn't actually have any impact. The instinctive response to someone taking a picture of my front door is that it's stalkerish and weird but anyone who needs to use that address in person needs to be able to identify my door, and anyone who walks past it can find out what it looks like. The association of my name with my address is assumed where I've placed an order using my name and address. Anyone who has my address can identify my front door (and if they can't, that's a problem). So we're not losing anything by the addition of this feature, and there might be benefits.

If you're really concerned about people being able to identify where you live, have your packages delivered somewhere else, whether to a PO Box, an office, a click and collect point, etc.

Now, if they had included a picture of me, that would be an issue, because nobody needs to know what I look like in order to deliver a package to an address, and I would kick off.

[halfeye]

...like a phone book?

Did you guys really not have phone books in England?

They were only as old as telephones, and telephones weren't ubiquitous until maybe the 1960s.

Beside which, you couldn't search them in seconds flat, nor by address (I think? it's been a long time).

[Bohandas]

...like a phone book?

Did you guys really not have phone books in England?

This is always my response when someone says something like this. When did people's names and address become top secret information?

EDIT:
And especially in situations like this topic where the people in question are folks you've TOLD your name and address to