Amazon plans to expand its palm-scanning payment system, Amazon One, to all 500+ Whole Foods stores by the end of the year. Amazon One, which now claims over 3 million users, enables people to link their Amazon accounts and payment cards with their palm prints. Once a palm print is stored in Amazon's system, a user can hover their hand over the scanner and the system auto-deducts the payment from the linked Amazon account. - The palm scanner technology was first introduced in Amazon's Go stores in 2020 and later expanded to over 200 Whole Foods locations, as well as restaurants like Panera and travel retailers such as Hudson, CREWS, and OHM.
- In May, Amazon added an identification feature allowing users to purchase alcohol by scanning their hands. That feature launched at the Coors Field baseball stadium in Denver and is coming to other large venues.
The scanner has raised security and privacy concerns as Amazon stores a user's biometric data in the cloud rather than on the device. - Amazon said it secures palm recognition data through multi-layered security controls, including storing data in a separate cloud storage environment.
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