First time poster here. I have been following this forum for a few months, and have been taking several moderate privacy precautions to avoid being tracked/profiled/targeted/manipulated by big tech, advertisers, businesses. I’m not intending to protect myself from being targeted by governments etc.
With that out of the way, I recently realized that Amazon has way more data on my profile than I’d like although I do not use them much and I’d like to start over with them. As a part of this effort, I’m faced with the choices below:
a) Use an alias+privacy.com to order to an amazon locker.
b) Use real name and order to my home.
Option (a) might sound like a no brainer, but from what I understand, Amazon locker has a camera on the keypad that you need to stand in front of when typing the locker access code. Given their reputation and abilities, I’d be surprised if they do not run facial recognition of you and store it in their database. For lockers that do not have keypad/camera, they require you to install an app on your phone and enable bluetooth. All of this makes me wonder if option (a) might be worse than (b).
So my question to the community is if anyone has additional information to justify one over the other? Based on the data request I made to amazon on my older account, I can see that they have every photo their delivery drivers took of their package placed at my doorstep. Similar to this, I wonder if they reveal the face scans of locker pickups if someone using their lockers makes a data request?
I think it depends on how much effort you want to put into your privacy here. Truly anonymous pick-up at a locker will be very hard. Any video recorded of the pick-up will be tied to your account. The biggest bang for your buck here is probably to wear a N95 style mask and beanie hat during pickup to significantly reduce facial recognition ability without being flagged as being too suspicious. Maybe switch up baggy clothing and gait too.
But you definitely want to reduce your overall usage of it or it. I can understand the desire to purchase things online though that are very hard to get in person. If you own a house then shipping there is trivial to associate with you.
Either way, if you use the same account, I imagine Amazon will make a profile of you. The difference is how much that profile is linked to your real identity.
Might it be better to get a UPS Store mailbox or similar service and have packages delivered there? Amazon would still have a history of orders tied to your pseudo name account, and UPS (or whatever) would know when you specifically received something and from whom, but there would be a disconnect between Amazon’s knowledge base and UPSs.
Honestly, if you just want moderate privacy, shipping to your actual house is probably safer than the locker, since those keypads are basically spying on your face and gait. You could try wearing a mask and hat at the locker, but Amazon still ties that video pickup directly to your account. A UPS mailbox is a decent middle ground too, though just remember the post office or private box usually comes with an additional payment or monthly fee. If you really want to go anonymous, try using a crypto service like Anon Shop to buy stuff without linking your identity, or just get a new throwaway account entirely. At the end of the day, the locker camera is probably the biggest risk you’re underestimating.
I wouldn’t use anonshop because it’s rather expensive when it seems the main service it’s providing is converting Monero into fiat, when you can pay someone to do that on xmrbazaar for 0 fees.
The tradeoff is that the “someone” needs to honour their side of the bargain, wheras at least with Anon Shop, there is a legal business entity behind the entire operation at the bottom of the footer.
This response summarizes what I’ve been thinking as well. So my takeaway so far is:
a) ship to home: Amazon know my name and address (which many businesses know already).
b) amazon locker with camera: Amazon knows my face in high res, which to me feels more invasive than my home address.
c) amazon locker without camera, but app+bluetooth: Amazon has access to a ton of data on my phone, as even a well secured iphone/android leaks far more data than home address.
Anon shop does not really address these issues as you probably have to show up at the locker for pickup anyways. And lastly I’m not willing to go as far as getting a UPS mailbox/facemask for this.
Thanks for all the feedback and helping me think this through!