Amazon mulls monitoring workers’ keyboard to prevent security threats

Amazon expressed its concerns that as more employees work remotely because of the pandemic, company data becomes more vulnerable to cases when outsiders, rogues, or imposters steal data from an employee’s unlocked computer.

To put a patch on such vulnerabilities, Amazon is planning to tap BehavioSoc to licence tools that could monitor their workers’ behavioural biometrics, reported Engadget.

According to BehavioSoc, which pioneers in related software, behavioural biometrics is the way a user uses their devices and apps, “such as mouse movements, typing rhythm, touch and swipe gestures or how they hold their device.”

“In contrast to physical biometrics like a fingerprint, behavioural biometrics provides continuous authentication to verify digital identities by passively monitoring of behavioural inputs without negatively impacting their experience,” said BehavioSoc in its Privacy FAQs page.

According to Amazon, it looked at other employee monitoring solutions but ended up relying on “privacy-aware” models like BehavioSoc, which collects anonymous keyboard data.