People buying groceries in Austin, Texas, can now pay the bill with just a swipe of the palm. This has been made possible by installation of the Amazon One device outside of Seattle, the New York Post reported. The device connects to the customer's credit or debit card and can scan their unique palm signature in about a second, the report further said.
This is yet another digital payment mode launched for the convenience of the shoppers. Other companies, like British-Polish Walletmor, earlier announced the commercial launch of implantable payment chips for the purpose.
"The implant can be used to pay for a drink on the beach in Rio, a coffee in New York, a haircut in Paris - or at your local grocery store," Walletmor's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Wojtek Paprota told the BBC.
The company has posted several photos and videos of the technology and how to embed it in the human body. It said that an interested user is given local anesthesia and a chip is inserted in his/her hand.
For the residents of Austin, the technology offered by Amazon One "offers a quick, reliable, and secure way for people to authorise a transaction", according to Director of Product Management Thi Luu, as per the Post.
The company has rolled out the feature at nine Whole Foods locations in Seattle. However, the palm-reading service has raised privacy concerns among some officials. Last year, in a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, US Senators Amy Klobuchar, Bill Cassidy, and Jon Ossoff raised concerns over the company's biometric data collection practices.
But, while rolling out the technology in 2020, Amazon had stated that the “Amazon One” device is protected by multiple security controls. According to NY Post report, in a statement, the company said, “The images are encrypted and sent to a highly secure area we custom-built for Amazon One in the cloud where we create your palm signature”.
Digital payments accelerated in the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted the movement of the people. This also led to an increase in research around contactless payments and making them secure.
Many credit and debit card companies are now offering tap and go payments to avoid touching of surfaces like the POS machines. Then, some wearable devices - like smartwatches and writbands - too have been quipped with secure method for consumers to purchase products or services. Payments via QR code also provided flexibility, especially in emerging markets, primarily because they are easy to use and inexpensive to implement.
