Amazon said it would install the system in its Amazon Go stores. (File)
Washington:
Amazon on Tuesday unveiled a new biometric payment system using palm recognition, which will be made available to competing retailers and also promoted as a replacement for entering badges at stadiums or workplaces.
The system called Amazon One was touted as “a fast, convenient, and contactless way for people to use their palms to perform everyday activities like paying in a store, presenting a loyalty card, entering a place like a stadium. or register for work more easily. . “
The U.S. tech giant said it would install the system at its Amazon Go outlets, starting with two stores in its hometown of Seattle, Washington.
Amazon Vice President Dilip Kumar said the system was developed as “a fast, reliable and secure way for people to identify themselves or authorize a transaction while moving seamlessly through their day. “.
Amazon One uses the “unique palm signature” of each individual, an alternative to other biometric identifiers such as fingerprint, iris or facial recognition.
“No two palms are the same, so we analyze all of these aspects with our vision technology and select the most distinct identifiers on your palm to create your palm signature,” Kumar said in a blog post.
In Amazon Go stores, the palm system will be added to the store front door as an option for shoppers.
“In most retail environments, Amazon One could become an alternative payment or loyalty card option with a device at checkout alongside a traditional point of sale system,” Kumar added.
The company said it was “in active discussions with several potential customers,” which could include other retailers, but gave no details.
Biometric blues
The announcement comes against a backdrop of rapid growth in the use of biometric payments, ranging from fingerprint verification on smartphones to more sophisticated systems using facial recognition.
China’s Alipay – the financial arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba – uses a “Smile-to-Pay” system, with a machine roughly the size of an iPad, for retailers.
This change has also raised privacy concerns about how biometric data will be protected and protected from hackers.
Amazon said the biometric data would be “protected by multiple security checks and the palm images are never stored on the Amazon One device” but sent to a “highly secure area that we custom built in the cloud” .
Doug Stephens of consulting firm Retail Prophet, said Amazon should protect data to gain user trust in the system and make it current.
“Biometrics as a form of identification / payment etc. has always had ultimate meaning,” Stephens said on Twitter. “The question is, is Amazon going to integrate our comfort with them or violate our trust?”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
