Amazon's smart bell can recognise you by smell

Amazon has registered some highly questionable patents from a privacy perspective: a smart bell called Ring will be able to recognise people by smell, sight, sound and gait.

Amazon-owned Ring, known for its smart bells, has been the subject of a number of privacy concerns in the past, including the revelation in January 2020 that Amazon employees had unauthorised access to and viewing of recordings made by Ring's bells. In light of these events, the recent announcement by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos that arrives at in the future, a new smart bell that will be able to identify people by skin texture and smell.

According to patents pending, future Ring smartwatches would use biometric identification, and would be able to identify people based on skin texture, gait, voice, retina, smell and more. In addition, the Ring smartbells would work in a common system, so if synchronised, the devices could work together to form a profile of a suspect or suspected suspect.

The possibility has previously been raised that Mississippi police could gain access to the real-time camera footage captured by the Ring smartwatch to prevent crime. While the Amazon then decided to distance itself from the police appeal and not to participate in the programme, the Business Insider reports that the company has partnered with approximately 1963 police and 383 fire departments in the United States.