Amazon One is still expanding into its largest area, the company is now testing its palm-scanning payment technology across Whole Foods, starting with a store in Seattle, Amazon’s hometown.
The company is using Amazon One payment technology in its Amazon-branded stores (including Amazon Go and Amazon Books) in the Seattle area, but the Whole Foods rollout will still be the most significant expansion of the technology. The company says thousands of customers have signed up with Amazon One.
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According to Amazon FAQ, the Palm scanning technique analyzes “minute characteristics of your palm – both surface-area details such as lines and stripes, as well as subcutaneous features such as vein patterns” to allow the customer to use them to identify. As a biometric scan optional (and, theoretically, faster), check than flicking around with a credit card or cash.
Customers will be able to register their palms on Kiosks in the supported whole food stores, allowing them to connect to a physical credit card in that palm scan. (Amazon One users who have already registered will have to re-link their cards once to be able to use them in Whole Foods.) And of course, Amazon One users will be able to link their Prime accounts to their scans to receive a subscription.
Amazon One, with plans to expand to seven other whole food stores in the Seattle area over the next few months, will be entering Seattle’s Madison Broadway Whole Foods as an additional payment option for consumers. Amazon has not announced plans to further expand its palm-scanning payment system outside the Seattle area.
All of this assumes that you’re always creating a large database of biometric information connected to Amazon with its customers, which some experts have raised concerns about. This is especially true in contrast to other biometric security systems, such as Amazon’s Face ID, where Amazon’s data is stored on the cloud instead of being stored locally on a specific device.
