Paying for groceries with your phone or watch might already be easy, but Amazon now wants you to pay with a swipe of the palm of your hand.
In another round of potential privacy-encroaching convenience, the tech giant has rolled out its palm recognition payment service, Amazon One, in two Southern California Whole Foods locations (Silver Lake and Irvine), with plans to add the capability to the organic grocery store’s Playa Vista location in the weeks to come. The device creates a unique palm signature for each user, which is then saved for future purchases.
Per the multi-billion dollar company’s spokesperson, the touch-free service promises to protect your data by storing users’ palm images in a secure part of the Amazon Web Services cloud, rather than locally on each palm recognition device itself. Users can elect to enroll one or both palms in the service, along with a credit or debit card. A single hover of one’s palm will charge the card on file. It’s that simple, and it’s that unsettling.
This isn’t the first time Amazon One has made an appearance in the L.A. area. As of writing, the palm recognition service is already available at Amazon Fresh stores in Moorpark, Woodland Hills, Ladera Heights and Cerritos, as well as the Whole Foods in Sherman Oaks.