Amazon to Offer 'Pay-by-Palm' at Whole Foods

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Facts

  • Amazon announced Thursday that it will offer Amazon One, a biometric technology that lets users enter and pay for items at stores by placing a palm over a scanning device, at every Whole Foods store location by the end of the year.1
  • Pay-by-palm is already established in over 200 Whole Foods — including in California, New York, and Texas — though it will now expand to the company's more than 500 locations. It's also available at non-Amazon-owned locations, such as the Colorado Rockies' stadium and Panera Bread.2
  • Amazon said that besides using it as a payment method, customers who link it to their Prime membership will also be able to automatically save on products once their palm is registered.3
  • Shoppers can enroll online with their credit or debit card, Amazon account, and mobile number. To complete the set-up, they scan their palm over an Amazon One device at a Whole Foods store where it reads their palm and underlying vein structure to create a unique numerical code called a "palm signature."4
  • The retail giant has increasingly marketed its technology — which also includes its cashier-less checkout program called Just Walk Out — to third parties, such as airport stores, sports stadiums, and concert venues, as part of its Amazon Web Services cloud division.1
  • While critics are calling on venues to stop partnering with Amazon One over concerns that the government could use the technology to track people, Amazon says it has implemented secure cloud storage for palm signatures as well as anti-tampering protections.2

Sources: 1CNBC, 2Engadget, 3The Hill, and 4Digital Trends.

Narratives

  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Amazon's invention of the palm-reading payment system is remarkable from both a business and health perspective. What may not be talked about is that this technology, which was built in record time, boosted Americans' confidence during the pandemic as they increasingly sought out touchless payment systems to steer clear of spreading viruses. Amazon has remained ahead of competitors like Apple and Walmart as it works to single-handedly revolutionize the payment processing industry.
  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Guardian. The use of biometric scanning — not just for palms, but facial and finger recognition, too — can very well lead to a dystopian future. While such tyrannical surveillance schemes are already seen in China, Western states, too, in conjunction with technology companies, are already using it. The UK's National Health System, for example, used facial scans to pull up people's COVID status, and stores are using it to spot "subjects of interest" who walk into their shops. This move is deeply concerning.

Predictions