Using Amazon One’s palm-to-pay at Whole Foods is coming soon to a store near you if you’re at one of the 65 Whole Foods stores in California that will see an expansion of the technology.
The Amazon One technology is not new, but the expansion shows Amazon’s commitment to growth in their palm-to-pay plan.
Amazon says Amazon One simplifies everyday interactions. It’s a free, contactless service that lets you use your palm to pay, enter, or identify yourself.
Amazon says the process is easy and safe. Amazon One account holders will use the Amazon One device to scan their palm. In seconds, a process of proprietary imaging and computer vision algorithms captures and encrypts your palm image.
With that, your palm will work as your unique signature for the Amazon One payment.
Right now Amazon One can now be found in Amazon Go convenience and grocery stores, Amazon Books, and Amazon four-star stores across the U.S. The scanners are also installed in eight Washington state-based Whole Foods locations.
To use Amazon One in stores the kiosk takes a picture of a user’s palm then encrypts it and sends it to a server for matching. From there the process is easy.
And nice for Amazon, as they continue their ability to collect data about customers and their spending habits.
Those with concerns can rest assured their voices are being heard. TechCrunch reports a group of US Senators expressed their concerns about the palm-scanning system last year.
“Amazon’s expansion of biometric data collection through Amazon One raises serious questions about Amazon’s plans for this data and its respect for user privacy, including about how Amazon may use the data for advertising and tracking purposes,” the senators wrote in the letter.
In a blog post after the launch of the technology, Amazon said that Amazon One was designed to be “highly secure.”
“The Amazon One device is protected by multiple security controls, and palm images are never stored on the Amazon One device. Rather, the images are encrypted and sent to a highly secure area we custom-built for Amazon One in the cloud,” the blog post said.
Mary Beth Lee retired from teaching in Texas this year after 28 years as a student media adviser. She spends her time these days reading, writing, fighting for public education and enjoying the empty nester life in Downtown Fort Worth.
