That’ll be one palm print, please

If you need to get your palm read, the place to go is about to be your local Whole Foods, not a fortune-teller. According to multiple recently published reports, Amazon plans to expand its Amazon One palm reading payment system to 65 Whole Foods locations across California in the coming weeks.

✋💳 Talk to the hand… Prior to this expansion, the tech was being tested in a few stores. Here’s how it works: Users link their palm and payment card to the service. Then, all they have to do to complete the checkout process is wave their palm over a scanner.

• This is different from Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” tech, which was developed in parallel and uses a combo of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning to let you sign into an app once entering a store, shop, and then.. well.. just walk out.
• It’s also different from other biometric systems like Apple’s Face ID, Touch ID or Samsung Pass – and in a major way. The other systems store biometric data on each individual’s device, whereas Amazon One sends your encrypted palm print to the cloud.

📸 Big picture: Step one of the master plan: roll the tech out in your own stores. Step two: license it to other businesses. Amazon says Amazon One could be used as a replacement for sporting and concert tickets, or even an office keycard.

But many are raising data privacy concerns, given Amazon doesn’t exactly have the cleanest handling record. Plus, it could be compelled to hand over any data it has to the authorities (apparently today’s newsletter has a running theme).

• Given widespread Amazon One adoption, the company would have access to an individual’s shopping data, streaming data, location, palm print, home security footage (if they use Ring), conversations (if they use Alexa), and – as of last week – an army of floor-plan-mapping robot vacuums.