April 23, 2021 4 min read

E-commerce giant Amazon is already living in the future. Jeff Bezos’ company implemented a system with biometric technology to allow customers to pay for their purchases just by showing the palm of their hand .

The Amazon One payment system is already up and running in some Seattle Whole Foods stores and will soon expand to seven more locations in the metropolitan area. There consumers can pay for their items with just a scan of their hand, eliminating the existing contact in cash or card payments.

Although Amazon One is a contactless payment system, the company clarified that it will not introduce the ‘no cashier’ model in stores. The system still requires scanning items before paying for them, so its implementation will not affect Whole Foods employees, he said.   the company in a press release.

“We started with the Just Walk Out technology on Amazon Go, and have since brought that experience to new formats and store locations, and made it available as a service for third-party retailers to use in their stores,” Amazon said. .

How do I pay with my hand on Amazon One?

To make use of this innovative method, customers can register at any Amazon One kiosk or device at participating stores. The whole process takes less than a minute.

After inserting their credit card, the user places their palm over the device, which uses a high-resolution, high-speed camera to read their hand. Then you just need to follow the instructions to associate the card with your unique handprint signature .

Since “no two palms are alike” , when placing your hand on the Amazon One device, it registers the details of your fingerprints: lines, wrinkles, veins, etc. The system analyzes the data with a vision technology and selects the most different identifiers from your palm to create the biometric signature . In theory, this would prevent someone else from stealing your identity to go shopping.

Regarding the protection of such sensitive data , Amazon One has multiple security controls. For example, your palm images are never stored on the device itself, but instead are encrypted and sent to a highly secure area of your cloud.

If after a while you decide that you no longer want to use Amazon One , you can request the deletion of your biometric records . This is done by canceling your registration on any Amazon One device or in the customer portal . After completing your withdrawal, the biometric data will be deleted from the system.