Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) may soon be selling “surveillance as a service” to those who are worried about the safety of their neighborhoods.
![Amazon Surveillance](https://investorplace.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
The online retailer recently attained a U.S. patent that would offer surveillance as a service in the form of an “unmanned aerial vehicle,” which is another way of saying “drone.” The device “may perform a surveillance action at a property of an authorized party” per the patent.
Amazon’s patent may also “image the property to generate surveillance images,” per the text on the filing. The patent was filed on June 12, 2015 and it was granted on June 4 of this year, which would give consumers a drone-based surveillance system that is better than a regular video-camera installation that has a limit to its range, which means it could miss certain things or be destroyed by someone.
The company’s patent adds that surveillance would be a “secondary task” of this drone-based device behind package delivery. Amazon suggests that a user may want to “subscribe to a surveillance system to provide surveillance as a service.”
The business offers other home surveillance and security products, including the smart doorbell Ring with a video feed, which the company acquired for more than $1 billion in February 2018. In May 2018, the company rolled out Neighbors, a social network to report crimes by uploading videos directly from Ring security cameras.
AMZN stock is up about 0.3% on Thursday following the company’s announcement.