Amazon brick-and-mortar stores may have a hand in changing the way we check out after shopping by using biometrics.
The online retailer rolled out biometric palm scanners at some stores last year and expanded the Amazon One program to grocery, book and 4-star stores in Seattle in February.
Now the company is expanding the program once again to stores across the country.
To get more people to scan their hands to pay, Amazon is offering a $10 promotional credit.
Amazon One says the hardware can read the “distinct features on and below the surface, many that are indiscernible to the human eye or a standard camera.”
The company said no two palms are alike and change little over time.
The image is stored on the cloud and will be used to confirm your identity when you decide to use it.
Not only will it allow you to pay, but it will also be used to collect data through your Amazon account.
The palm data will be stored indefinitely unless you delete the account or if the payment feature has not been used for two years, Insider reported.
Not all agree with providing more biometric data to Amazon.
“The dystopian future of science fiction is now. It’s horrifying that Amazon is asking people to sell their bodies, but it’s even worse that people are doing it for such a low price,” Albert Fox Cahn told TechCrunch via email.
Cahn is the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversite Project, which is based in New York.
“Biometric data is one of the only ways that companies and government can track us permanently. You can change your name, you can change your Social Security number, but you can’t change your palm print. The more we normalize these tactics, the harder they will be to escape. If we don’t [draw a] line in the sand here, I am very fearful what our future will look like,” Cahn told TechCrunch.
So far, Amazon said “thousands” of people have signed up, The Verge reported.
To see where the Amazon One palm scans are available, click here.
©2021 Cox Media Group
