Smile for Amazon: your next parcel could film your reaction as you open the box

Amazon is designing self-opening smart parcels that can video the recipient’s “excitement” as they open the package.

Inventors say boxes delivered to homes in the future could feature a timer so they spring open at a given time, and be equipped to capture the owner’s reaction with inbuilt cameras and microphones.

The next-generation parcels were dreamed up as there is currently no way to “control the opening of the package prior to a certain date or time, such as a birthday or holiday”, Amazon says.

The cyber superstore says having a package “equipped to automatically open itself” would help combat fraud and also give the firm extra detail about the level of interest a buyer has in the goods, as well as measuring the amount of time it might sit unopened.

To activate the invention’s opening mechanism, a light sensor could also trigger a compressed spring to create “mechanical energy”, according to the patent.

The parcel could be fitted with a GPS tracker and camera so photographs or video “may be captured”.

The patent says the cameras could “acquire photos and/or video of a user’s excitement when opening a package”.

It adds: “Microphones may acquire the sound of a recipient’s excited voice upon opening a shipping package.” Notifications sent to the vendor, or the person buying the item as a present, could include “contextual data recorded at the time of the opening, such as audio or video of the recipient’s reaction upon seeing the item”.

These recordings could also be used to try and sell the customer “follow-up incentives or offers”, the patent says.

Recordings could also be saved to Amazon’s “datastore”. But civil liberties campaigners today described the concept as “dystopian”.

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “When even the mundane act of opening a parcel becomes an opportunity for sensors and surveillance, the crazy line has been crossed and customers’ rights overlooked.

“This is yet another example of Amazon’s relentlessly dystopian product developments and their general approach to shaping technology for the future causes us serious concern.”

Amazon has declined to comment.