Amazon wristbands: ‘Employers are increasingly treating their employees like robots’

The Amazon Fulfillment Center in Kenosha, Wisc., on March 10, 2016. (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

As Amazon continues its quest to shrink delivery times and add warehouses in Illinois, the e-commerce behemoth is eyeing technology that could track the movements of its workers' hands as they fulfil orders. 

The company recently won patents for wristbands that could be used as part of an inventory system, communicating with equipment in warehouses and nudging employees via vibrations if, for example, they were about to place items in the wrong bins. But in a world where the legal limits on gathering and using people's data remain largely undefined, use of such devices could quickly turn nefarious, some experts say.