Amazon's AI Cameras Are Punishing Drivers for Mistakes They Didn't Make
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ADVERTISEMENT Amazon delivery drivers say surveillance cameras installed in their vans have made them lose income for reasons beyond their control. By Lauren Kao ri Gurley Sept ember 20, 2021, 1:47pm In early 2021, Amazon installed AI-powered cameras in the delivery vans at one of its depots in Los Angeles. On the Clock Derek, a delivery driver at the facility, said the camera in On t he Clo ck is Mo t herbo ard's + ENGLISH his van started to incorrectly penalize him whenever cars repo rt ing o n t he cut him off, an everyday occurrence in Los Angeles o rganized labo r mo vement , gig traffic. wo rk, aut o mat io n, and t he fut ure o f “Maintain safe distance,” the camera installed above his wo rk. seat would say when a car cut him off. That data would be SEE MORE → sent to Amazon, and would be used to evaluate his performance that week and determine whether he got a bonus. ADVERTISEMENT “Every time I need to make a right hand turn, it inevitably happens. A car cuts me off to move into my lane, and the camera, in this really dystopian dark, robotic voice, shouts at me," Derek, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared retribution from Amazon, told Motherboard. "It's so disconcerting. It’s upsetting, when I didn't do anything.”
ADVERTISEMENT In February, Amazon announced that it would install cameras made by the AI- tech startup Netradyne in its Amazon-branded delivery vans as an “innovation” to “keep drivers safe.” As of this month, Amazon had fitted more than half of its delivery fleet nationwide with this technology, an Amazon spokesperson told Motherboard. Motherboard spoke to six Amazon delivery drivers in California, Texas, Kansas, Alabama, and Oklahoma, and the owner of an Amazon delivery company in Washington who said that rather than encourage safe driving, Netradyne cameras regularly punish drivers for so-called "events" that are beyond their + ENGLISH control or don't constitute unsafe driving. The cameras will punish them for looking at a side mirror or fiddling with the radio, stopping ahead of a stop sign at a blind intersection, or getting cut off by another car in dense traffic, they said. The Netradyne camera, which requires Amazon drivers to sign consent forms to release their biometric data, has four lenses that record drivers when they detect “events” such as following another vehicle too closely, stop sign and street light violations, and distracted driving. ADVERTISEMENT When the camera detects an “event,” it uploads the footage to a Netradyne interface accessible to Amazon and its delivery companies, and in some instances, a robotic voice speaks out to the driver: “distracted driving” or “maintain safe distance.”
ADVERTISEMENT Each time the camera registers an event, footage is uploaded into a system, recorded, and affects a score drivers receive at the end of the week for safe driving. For many Amazon drivers, these performance scores determine whether they receive weekly bonuses, prizes, and extra pay. + ENGLISH 06:45 The driver in Los Angeles told Motherboard that he has tried to contest events with Amazon with no luck. “When I get my score each week, I ask my company to tell me what I did wrong,” the driver told Motherboard. “My [delivery company] will email Amazon and cc' me, and say, ‘Hey we have [drivers] who'd like to see the photos flagged as events, but they don't respond. There's no room for discussion around the possibility that maybe the camera's data isn't clean.” Jamie Gomez, a former Amazon delivery driver in Sugar Land, Texas said the Netradyne camera in his van has also detected “events” that didn’t actually happen, but that impacted his performance score at Amazon, which determined whether he received prizes, such as rain jackets, from his delivery company.
ADVERTISEMENT “Before I would be able to win prizes and stuff, as soon as cameras came along, it went downhill,” Gomez said. ADVERTISEMENT + ENGLISH Amazon drivers believe that AI-powered surveillance cameras have served as a cost-saving measure for the company. Amazon delivery drivers and delivery companies, known as “delivery service partners,” which contract with Amazon and employ drivers, have reported losing income from erroneous citations registered by Netradyne. “It’s consistently beeping at drivers all day long. This creates a massive distraction to drivers on the road, and it creates a massive workload for delivery companies to review video.” “The Netradyne cameras that Amazon installed in our vans have been nothing but a nightmare,” a former Amazon delivery driver in Mobile, Alabama told Motherboard. “They watch every move we make. I have been ‘dinged’ for following too close when someone cuts me off. If I look into my mirrors to make sure I am safe to change lanes, it dings me for distraction because my face is turned to look into my mirror. I personally did not feel any more safe with a camera watching my every move.”
ADVERTISEMENT One current Amazon delivery driver in Oklahoma, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared retaliation from Amazon and his delivery company, told Motherboard that the biggest problem with Netradyne cameras is the frequency with which they detect false stop sign violations. “Most false positives we get are stop sign violations,” he said. “Either we stop after the stop sign so we can see around a bush or a tree and it dings us for that, or it catches yield signs as stop signs. A few times, we've been in the country on a dirt road, where there's no stop sign, but the camera flags a stop sign.” + ENGLISH ADVERTISEMENT Multiple drivers said this means they've started to stop at stop signs twice, once before a stop sign for the Netradyne camera, and another time for visibility before crossing an intersection. Amazon delivery drivers are frequently under high pressure to meet delivery quotas as quickly as possible in order to qualify for Amazon's bonuses. THE NETRADYNE INTERFACE CAN BE ACCESSED BY AMAZON AND THE DELIVERY COMPANY THAT EMPLOYS A DRIVER. "One of the safety improvements we’ve made this year is rolling out industry- leading telematics and camera-based safety technology across our delivery fleet," Alexandra Miller, a spokesperson for Amazon told Motherboard. "This technology provides drivers real-time alerts to help them stay safe when they are on the road."
ADVERTISEMENT Netradyne did not respond to a request for comment. Do you have a tip to share with us about Amazon? Please get in touch with the reporter via email lauren.gurley@vice.com or Signal 201-897-2109. Since Amazon installed Netradyne cameras in its vans, Miller claims that accidents had decreased by 48 percent and stop sign and signal violations had decreased 77 percent. Driving without a seatbelt decreased 60 percent, following distance decreased 50 percent, and distracted driving had decreased 75 percent. + ENGLISH Amazon delivery companies around the country are at different stages of rolling out this technology, and grouped into cohorts, but Miller said this data is comprehensive since the pilot installment of Netradyne. ADVERTISEMENT F or Amazon delivery companies, which receive bonuses by earning "fantastic" scores on a weekly scorecard, Netradyne “events” can ruin a scorecard, meaning the delivery company doesn't receive income it needs to pay for vehicle repairs, consumables, damages, support staff and bonuses for drivers. Every week, Amazon gives each delivery driver a tier rating, which ranges from “fantastic” to "good" to “fair” to “poor” based on a series of metrics, including Netradyne events. Each Amazon delivery company receives a scorecard that
ADVERTISEMENT combines all its drivers' scores, according to a scorecard reviewed by Motherboard. “Amazon uses these cameras allegedly to make sure they have a safer driving workforce, but they're actually using them not to pay delivery companies,” an owner of an Amazon delivery company in Washington told Motherboard. The owner said he received no training on how to use Netradyne cameras. “They just take our money and expect that to motivate us to figure it out.” Miller, the Amazon spokesperson, said “each Delivery Service Partner is trained + ENGLISH on the safety technology and are required to communicate to their teams how the events impact the DSP scorecard.” VIMEO According to an internal document obtained by Motherboard, which explains how Amazon weighs an array of metrics that make up the delivery company's scorecard, “safety and compliance” make up 40 percent of a delivery service partner's score. This includes a “safe driving metric” calculated by a smartphone app known as Mentor, a “seatbelt off rate,” a “speeding event rate,” “sign/signal violations rate,” “a distractions rate,” and a “following distance rate.” In June, Motherboard reported that Amazon delivery companies were encouraging drivers to shut off the Mentor app that monitors safety in order to hit Amazon's delivery quotas. ADVERTISEMENT
Each of these metrics has a specificADVERTISEMENT definition. According to the document, the following distance, for example, “measures how DSPs are performing in terms of leaving enough following distance from the vehicle in front. Netradyne will create a Following Distance event if a [driver] has 0.6 seconds or less following distance from the vehicle in front.” “Each time a [driver] doesn't leave enough following distance, Netradyne registers 1 event, and the [delivery company's] weekly score is the sum of all following distance events divided by the number of trips," the document continues. “[Delivery companies] who receive a fantastic score typically achieve + ENGLISH 5 events per 100 trips or less.” VIMEO Amazon currently defines stop sign and street light violations as “any time a DA [delivery associate] drives through/past a stop sign without coming to a full stop, illegal U-turns… and street light violations, which are triggered anytime a [driver] drives through an intersection when the light is red.” Each red light violation counts as 10 stop sign violation events. In order to earn a “fantastic” score, delivery companies must earn 50 events per 100 trips or less. “If your safety rating is not fantastic, you don’t get a bonus,” the Amazon delivery company owner in Washington told Motherboard. “They say 'we’re safety obsessed’ or whatever bullshit, but this camera costs delivery companies hundreds of dollars in revenue each week that they need to train drivers and survive. Without the bonus, you don't survive, you go out of business.” ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT A nnoyed by, and in many cases, fearful of surveillance, some drivers have begun placing stickers over the cameras to avoid the camera from recording footage of them. Others wear sunglasses to circumvent the camera's “distracted driving” monitor, which they say is hyper-sensitive. + ENGLISH "Before I would be able to win prizes and stu , as soon as cameras came along, it went downhill.” According to an internal document obtained by Motherboard, Amazon collects three types of distraction, including when a driver looks down, when a driver looks at their phone, and when a driver talks on the phone. In order to earn "fantastic" scores and receive bonuses, Amazon delivery companies must register less than five "distraction events" per 100 delivery routes. “Most drivers at my company cover the cameras up with stickers, because the cameras get to be a nuisance,” an Amazon delivery driver who works at an Amazon delivery station in Shepherdsville, Kentucky told Motherboard. “They ping all day and people get horrible scores, but it’s a lie. They didn’t do anything bad. It’s impossible to stop at stop signs every time like they want you to.” “If we brought up problems with the cameras, managers would brush it under the table, they're only worried about getting the packages out,” he said. “So we cover them up. They don't tell us to, but it's kind of like ‘don't ask, don't tell.’” ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT On Reddit, an Amazon delivery driver recently posted a screenshot of a series of messages from their delivery service company owner, saying drivers who + ENGLISH registered a single event on “Netradyne” would not be eligible for bonuses, because the company had lost thousands of dollars from seatbelt violations. ”Good morning team: I just watched about 12 videos of someone here on the team with NO SEATBELT on," the texts read. "This will damage my revenue and our scorecard for next week. Several thousands of dollars GONE. If you show up for any event on NETRADYNE, your incentive will be gone automatically.” Drivers say that with their steep delivery quotas and the fact that they are often getting in and out of the truck, buckling and unbuckling their seatbelt dozens of times in a single neighborhood can slow down the delivery process significantly. The delivery companies' overall safety score determines whether delivery companies earn bonuses from Amazon for the week, which can amount to thousands of dollars for a company that delivers tens of thousands of packages a week—and can be the difference between surviving and going bankrupt for a delivery company, which employs anywhere between 15 and 40 drivers. One Amazon delivery service partner owner said Amazon pay 15 cents extra per package if their fleet receives a "fantastic" score. "They say 'we’re safety obsessed’ or whatever bullshit, but this camera costs delivery companies hundreds of
ADVERTISEMENT dollars in revenue each week that they need to train drivers and survive.” According to an Amazon delivery service partner scorecard obtained by Motherboard, delivery companies are allotted four weeks of practice with Netradyne cameras before its metrics impact their scores, but none of the drivers Motherboard spoke to said they received formal training on how Netradyne “events” can impact their scorecards. + ENGLISH In July, Motherboard reported that two Amazon delivery companies in Portland terminated their contracts with Amazon, in a rare act of protest against Amazon for imposing a financially unsustainable business model on them. In a letter to Amazon, their lawyer cited the Netradyne cameras as one way Amazon exerts unreasonable control over their business operations. A mazon's delivery service partner program relies on 2,000 small delivery companies that employ 115,000 drivers in the United States to deliver billions of packages each year. Amazon skirts liability for these drivers through this contract model, but requires delivery companies to adhere to a set of rules around hiring, drivers' appearances and social media activity, pay, routes, and safety mechanisms, including Netradyne cameras. Motherboard spoke to four drivers and the owner of an Amazon delivery company who said it isn't possible under most circumstances for an Amazon delivery company to appeal erroneous violations with Amazon, although Amazon does have an automated portal for the appeal process where delivery companies can submit a feedback ticket to Amazon and dispute “events.” “If you get an event at our company, you get a phone call. It’s an ass chewing. We’re not able to go to the manager or [delivery service partner] owner to appeal,” the driver in Oklahoma said. “We would love to but they won’t bother with it, unless you have clear evidence already.”
AI experts have noted that AmazonADVERTISEMENT and other companies rely on algorithms, such as worker surveillance systems, that increase their profits and cut wages. “The ability of automated management platforms to manipulate (and arbitrarily cut) wages has been at the heart of worker grievances,” a 2019 report from New York University's AI Now Institute said. “AI threatens not only to disproportionately displace lower-wage earners, but also to reduce wages, job security, and other protections for those who need it most.” A spokesperson for Amazon told Motherboard that a team of Amazon employees manually reviews all events that are appealed to ensure that erroneous events do + ENGLISH not impact drivers or Amazon delivery companies. The delivery company owner in Washington said the number of events registered by Netradyne per week, the amount of labor involved in reviewing them, and the low likelihood that an “event” would be overturned, made the appeal process futile. “It’s consistently beeping at drivers all day long,” the owner of the Amazon delivery company in Washington said. “This creates a massive distraction to drivers on the road, and it creates a massive workload for delivery companies to review video. It's way too much labor to get it done every week. If you get 600 or 700 events a week, drivers might never get coaching on it.” TAGGED: SURVEILLANCE,LABOR,DELIVERY PEOPLE, ON THE CLOCK, NETRADYNE ORIGINAL REPORTING ON EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS IN YOUR INBOX. Yo ur email address Subscribe By signing up t o t he VICE newslet t er yo u agree t o receive elect ro nic co mmunicat io ns fro m VICE t hat may so met imes include advert isement s o r spo nso red co nt ent .
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ADVERTISEMENT + ENGLISH Amazon’s Cost Saving Routing Algorithm Makes Drivers Walk Into Tra ic "It’s fucking horrendous, honestly. [You're crossing] multiple lanes, busy tra ic." By Lauren Kao ri Gurley June 2, 2021, 2:33pm
Mike, an Amazon delivery driver in central ADVERTISEMENT Florida, is accustomed to jogging back and forth across three-lane highways to deliver packages. He On the Clock has sprinted across busy commercial streets during rush hour, and crossed On t he Clo ck is Mo t herbo ard's rural highways on foot at sundown. repo rt ing o n t he o rganized labo r mo vement , gig "I find the most dangerous to be smaller two-lane highways with almost no wo rk, aut o mat io n, room to pull off the road," Mike told Motherboard in May. (Mike spoke on and t he fut ure o f condition of pseudonymity because he fears he could lose his job for wo rk. speaking to the press.) "The speed limits on these roads will often be 50-60 SEE MORE → mph and we’re having to pull halfway off the road and then [walk across] + ENGLISH ... oftentimes at night." ADVERTISEMENT If it were up to him, Mike said, he would never run across a highway with his arms full of packages. But the routing algorithm designed for its Flex app by Amazon's research scientists often makes it unavoidable, according to a source with direct knowledge of Amazon's routing algorithm. In North America and Europe, roughly 85,000 contracted delivery drivers rely on this algorithm to do their jobs. While crossing the street in a quiet suburban neighborhood is probably safe, doing so on a 50 mph highway can be deadly. Motherboard spoke to Amazon delivery drivers who work in Florida, Illinois, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, and California who described sprinting across the street—or the highway—to follow the Flex app's directions.
ADVERTISEMENT This app determines delivery routes for both Amazon's contracted delivery drivers, who drive Amazon-branded vans, and members of its independent contractor workforce, known as Amazon Flex drivers, who drive their own cars. When a driver has to make deliveries to several addresses that are clustered together, the Flex app combines them into a single stop, rather than make a stop at each address. Drivers call these "group stops," while Amazon research scientists and engineers tasked with optimizing routes that incorporate hundreds of stops per shift refer to this routing mechanism as "stop consolidation." “Stop consolidation is a big thing [at Amazon]. + ENGLISH Without it, the routes would be too expensive.” These stops often include addresses on both sides of a street—or highway. Rather than directing drivers to make a U-turn and deliver packages on one side of the street and then the other, the app instructs drivers to cross the street on foot. Depending on the size and number of packages, the driver might have to walk across the street multiple times, or run in order to meet Amazon's delivery quotas. AMAZON'S ROUTING ALGORITHM COMBINES MULTIPLE NEARBY ADDRESSES WITH DELIVERIES INTO A SINGLE STOP. IN THE EXAMPLE ABOVE, A, B, AND C ARE STOPS. WHILE STOPS A AND C ARE DELIVERIES TO A SINGLE HOUSE, STOP B REQUIRES A DRIVER PARK AND THEN DELIVER TO SEVEN HOUSES ON FOOT, WALKING—OR SPRINTING—BACK AND FORTH ACROSS THE STREET TO DO SO. THIS PROCESS SAVES TIME BUT CAN BE HIGHLY DANGEROUS FOR DRIVERS CROSSING HIGHWAYS AND BUSY COMMERCIAL STREETS. (JOANA SOBRAL) An Amazon dispatcher whose job it is to monitor Amazon delivery drivers' progress on their routes using GPS on the Flex app said sometimes group stops on the Flex app are so spread out— with houses a quarter mile apart—that it takes 15 minutes to run up and down and back and forth across streets to make the deliveries. "You're hauling ass to get to these houses, sometimes running across four lanes of traffic," the dispatcher, who quit their job at an Amazon delivery depot in upstate New York in May, said. Amazon's contracted delivery drivers must use the app and follow its directions to make deliveries, meanwhile Amazon's gig workers—who are independent contractors—can manually change Amazon's routing order, but must use the app to make their deliveries. ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT “Stop consolidation is a big thing [at Amazon]," a source with direct knowledge of Amazon's routing algorithm for delivery drivers said. "Without it, the routes would be too expensive.”+ ENGLISH At Amazon, which pays delivery companies a fixed rate per delivery route each day regardless of how long it takes, the goal is to squeeze in as many deliveries as possible on a route, the source with internal knowledge of how Amazon creates its delivery routes said. Amazon delivery drivers have complained that their deliveries quotas have increased during the pandemic despite being asked to complete their deliveries in the same 10-hour shifts. "The main goal [at Amazon] is to make them deliver the most packages as possible in [a shift] because then we have to hire fewer drivers," the source familiar with Amazon's routing algorithm said. Hiring fewer drivers means the employer can pay less into worker's compensation, disability, and other employment benefits. Do you have a tip to share with us about Amazon? Do you have information about accidents involving Amazon delivery drivers? We’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with the reporter Lauren via email lauren.gurley@vice.com or securely on Signal 201-897-2109. Alexandra Miller, a spokesperson for Amazon Logistics, denied that Amazon delivery drivers frequently jaywalk across busy intersections and run across high-speed rural highways, and said that if the company identifies data quality issues or defects in its maps, it fixes them promptly. “Our routing system is designed to make the delivery experience as easy as possible for drivers and prioritizes same side of the street deliveries, unless the road is safe to cross," Miller said. ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT Amazon's delivery route algorithm is designed to maximize efficiency by finding the most optimal + ENGLISH way to route drivers, according to the source with knowledge of Amazon's internal routing algorithms. These optimized routes, though, often have Amazon delivery drivers—who report working under excess pressure and time constraints to deliver upwards of 400 Amazon packages a day during 10-hour shifts—running across the street while in danger of getting hit by traffic. “Sometimes you'll get a stop where you'll be delivering six packages on one side of the street and seven on the other side and someone ordered a 50 pound page of dog food or cat litter, and you're struggling." Amazon's delivery drivers are technically employed not by Amazon but by third-party contractors, known as delivery service partners, of which there are more than 800 worldwide. Despite this employment arrangement, which removes Amazon's responsibility for accidents and other liabilities on the road, Amazon research scientists design the algorithms that determine the routes of drivers who deliver its packages. "It’s fucking horrendous, honestly," an Amazon delivery driver in Grand Rapids, Michigan who quit in May told Motherboard. "[You're crossing] multiple lanes, busy traffic." ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT "I was mostly worried about getting hit by cars," said an Amazon delivery driver in Rosemead, California, who quit in April. "I had to be on the lookout for drivers speeding through, drivers who could lose control and end up hitting me." + ENGLISH "In our training, they promoted 'group stops,' saying that it would make our jobs easier," an Amazon delivery driver in Charleston, South Carolina, told Motherboard. "But sometimes you'll get a stop where you'll be delivering six packages on one side of the street and seven on the other side and someone ordered a 50 pound page of dog food or cat litter, and you're struggling." "Sometimes I'm crossing a main highway, and I just park in the center meridian rather than run across a four-lane highway at dusk," he said. Another Amazon dispatcher confirmed that so-called group stops where Amazon drivers must traverse busy streets on foot are common. "This happens to my drivers every single day," the Amazon dispatcher in Indiana told Motherboard. "You have to park on one side of the street, and run across two lanes, when it's very, very busy." The Flex app allows Amazon drivers to make U-turns, park in center turn lanes, or drive the wrong way down the street, but doing so sets them back on precious time to complete their routes and, breaking traffic laws and "parking [a] van unattended in a non-parking zone or area," can result in discipline that can lead to termination, according to Amazon's disciplinary policy. Designing delivery routes for last-mile logistics companies like Amazon isn't a straightforward task. Rather than making hundreds of thousands of individual routes each day, research scientists create algorithms. These determine how routes are dispersed geographically to and from different
ADVERTISEMENT Amazon delivery depots and in what order each driver must deliver packages to complete as many deliveries as possible in a given amount of time. Unlike Uber and Lyft rides, which require algorithms to determine the single fastest route a driver can take between point A and point B, route designers at delivery companies like Amazon and FedEx are required to solve mathematical problems involving a large set of variables involving destinations and distances. Finding the most efficient path that travels through all of them is often called the "vehicle routing problem." ADVERTISEMENT + ENGLISH Research scientists have yet to develop a best solution for designing vehicle routes with multiple stops, despite decades of research, but delivery companies have developed different methods to create optimal routes. Typically, this means finding the shortest route, but some companies have chosen to focus on cutting delays, such as traffic and wait time making left-hand turns. Motherboard reached out to the top package delivery carriers, UPS and FedEx, and the United States Postal Service to find out whether their routes also force package carriers to run across the street. A spokesperson for the Postal Service said mail carriers occasionally cross the street on foot at crosswalks or deliver in zig-zag patterns in certain neighborhoods while following traffic rules. "Every carrier is required to observe all local traffic and safety laws, using crosswalks when crossing busy streets, and following traffic signals or the direction of traffic control personnel," said Kimberly Frum, a spokesperson for the Postal Service.
ADVERTISEMENT UPS told Motherboard that its drivers do not deliver on both sides of the street at once but deliver on the odd then even sides of the street. "We find it safer and more efficient to design delivery areas ('routes') that have our drivers delivering the odd side of the street from origin to an apex, turning once, then delivering the even side of the street," the spokesperson for UPS, said. “FedEx couriers and service providers combine the use of advanced route optimization technologies with their local knowledge and experience to enhance delivery efficiencies," a FedEx spokesperson said, but did not answer a question about whether FedEx drivers were ever required to cross the street on foot. + ENGLISH Motherboard spoke to FedEx drivers in Michigan and Illinois, including a former Amazon delivery driver, who said FedEx had never required them to cross a busy street on foot, and that its internal routing system allows them to rearrange their stops. Amazon delivery drivers also complain that stop consolidation makes it appear like a driver's workload is lighter than it actually is when the driver sees the number of stops on their route for the day. A group stop is considered a single stop even if it's a delivery to seven different buildings, or 20 units within an apartment complex, for example. "They bunch stops together so it doesn't look like they're working us into the ground as much," an Amazon delivery driver in Windsor, New York told Motherboard. "It will say 200 stops on a route but in reality I'll have 240 stops." TAGGED: LABOR,DELIVERY,AMAZON PRIME, PACKAGES,ON THE CLOCK ADVERTISEMENT
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