What kind of company is Amazon? It’s a question with a lot of reasonable answers: It’s a peerless e-commerce giant; it’s a massive shipping and logistics operation; it’s a devices and digital-services company that sells millions of gadgets; it’s a cloud provider so widely used that a regional outage can take out a good chunk of the entire internet. With the help of Whole Foods, it’s become a credible competitor in groceries, and with Prime Video, a major streamer and producer of TV and movies. In the course of becoming America’s quintessential neo-conglomerate, though, Amazon has also become something else: a serious — and diverse — surveillance firm.

Two pieces of news from this month help map the depth and scope of Amazon’s investment in surveillance technology. This week, following smartglasses and headset updates from Meta and Apple, Amazon previewed a new pair of glasses that it says will add to its “system of technology to support [delivery] drivers.” The pitch:

Designed specifically for [Delivery Associates], these glasses help them scan packages, follow turn-by-turn walking directions, and capture proof of delivery—all without the use of their phone. The glasses create a hands-free experience, reducing the need to look between the phone, the package, and the surrounding area.

The company emphasizes potential safety benefits for delivery workers, whose jobs are already substantially dictated (and tracked by) mobile apps with a lot of the same functionality. Amazon also says it’s “leveraging the latest advancements in AI to create an end-to-end system” that runs from “inside our delivery stations, to over the road, to the last hundred yards to a customer’s doorstep.” Then it........

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