Coffee machine camera at Amazon warehouse raises concerns about surveillance in the workplace
A worker accidentally discovered that a touchscreen on a coffee vending machine had taken photos of the breakroom.
February 19, 2024
Amazon is in the process of replacing a breakroom coffee machine in its Maple Grove warehouse after an employee inadvertently discovered a camera inside the machine that took pictures of the breakroom.
The discovery alarmed a local nonprofit that works with East African workers, who comprise a sizable amount of Amazon’s Minnesota workforce. Local East African Muslim workers have a history of protesting the company’s wages and workplace conditions, including its handling of workers’ daily prayer practices and requests for time off for Muslim holidays.
An employee at the DMP1 Amazon Delivery Station was getting coffee on February 9 when he saw a button on the coffee vending machine’s touch screen that read “gallery,” according to Jonathan Canaday, a sortation associate who was working at the warehouse that day. The employee pushed the button and came across around half a dozen random photos of the breakroom, according to Canaday.
The discovery quickly “spread like wildfire” and created a “hubbub,” Canaday said, as Amazon workers flocked to the machine to see the pictures for themselves. Management quickly came to the scene to “triage the situation.”
Abdirahman Muse, executive director of Awood Center, a labor organization that works with Minnesota’s East African community, said the situation is concerning because of previous incidents where the retail giant used tech to track workers’ productivity in excessive and illegal ways. He said that Amazon workers must feel free to talk about work in the breakroom without the fear of being surveilled.
“East African workers organizing with the Awood Center have been raising concerns about invasion of their privacy by Amazon for years, advocating for improved working conditions,” Abdirahman said. “They’re seriously concerned about this recent allegation.”
Amazon spokesperson Alisa Carroll said a malfunction caused the camera to take photos. The machine, provided by the vending supplier Canteen, features a touch screen and uses a camera for people to purchase coffee with a card, she said. But Carroll added that Amazon offers the coffee to employees free of charge and has no practical use for the camera. The cameras cannot capture audio, she added.
Upon discovery of the camera taking pictures, Amazon management addressed the issue with employees and immediately contacted Canteen, which sent workers to the warehouse to take a look at the machine, Carroll said. Canteen did not return messages seeking comment for this story.
The machine is currently operating in the breakroom with a piece of tape covering the camera, as Amazon awaits a new coffee machine that either doesn’t have a camera or has a disabled camera, she said.
The breakroom in question has two other cameras present: a security camera on the ceiling and another security camera attached to a self-checkout kiosk employees use when buying food, Canaday said. Employees are aware of both security cameras, which are clearly visible and expected, Canaday said.
Canaday said he and other employees felt that the coffee machine was intrusive, because employees weren’t aware of its camera and the pictures until the accidental discovery. Workers use the breakroom to decompress and talk about “anything from our own lives to our opinions of what is going on at work that day,” he said.
“Since Amazon poses as a major tech company, it seems really negligent on their part to put a piece of machinery in their building that does something excessive like take pictures of the breakroom without people’s knowledge,” Canaday said. “We see there are security cameras around the building. That’s fine. But cameras in the coffee machine seem really duplicitous. It’s really upsetting.”
Canaday, who has worked for Amazon for the past year, estimates that the Maple Grove facility employs around 200 people, two-thirds of them people of color. He added that the same coffee machine is at other Minnesota warehouses, including one in Eagan and one in Centerville, which he recently helped open.
Carroll said she wasn’t sure how many of the same machines were at other Amazon workplaces. Amazon doesn’t intend for its employees to feel vulnerable in any way, she added.
