Amazon One Is Rolling Out Its Creepy Palm Payments To Every US Whole Foods Store
The exchange of goods is usually facilitated by currency, and these days there are many different ways of using said currency without ever actually touching cold hard cash. This is because available options for payment include credit and debit cards, smartphone applications, and even biometrics like finger prints.
Amazon One is one such biometric means of procuring items and services, and it simply involves creating an account through Amazon One that makes a unique imprint of your palm (and other variables) to act as the vector of identity. In other words, instead of using a card or smartphone, you simply show your palm to the Amazon One device, and your purchase is complete.
For those of you who frequent Whole Foods stores in the United States, you will soon be able to use Amazon One palm payments at any and all of these grocery stores. As announced by Amazon itself, the company aims to have Amazon One in all stores by the end of the year — noting that there are already a little more than 200 Whole Foods that already have them.
Amazon One collects biometric data to complete payments
Chief technology officer at Whole Foods Market, Leandro Balbinot, said of the expansion, "We are always looking for new ways to delight our customers and improve the shopping experience. Since we've introduced Amazon One at Whole Foods Market stores over the past two years, we've seen that customers love the convenience it provides, and we're excited to bring Amazon One to all of our customers across the U.S."
While some biometrics use a simple finger print, Amazon One uses the aforementioned palm imprint, though it is much more then just an image. Instead, Amazon One paints a complete picture involving easily observable details such as the ridges and lines on the palm, but also sub-surface features like veins. This information is then stored on the Amazon AWS cloud servers, which allows the corporation to collect several personal physiological characteristics.
Although Amazon One is an easy means of obtaining goods and services, it may be a little unsettling to some for their own body to become what is essentially a debit or credit card, and that this information is routinely stored on cloud-based servers. Convenience, in this case, may come at the cost of privacy.