Amazon doubles down on palm recognition across its network of Whole Foods grocery stores. Whole Foods has now transformed your hands into a money-dispensing machine. Amazon One's dystopian palm payment technology is coming to ALL 500+ Whole Foods grocery stores in the U.S.
Whole Foods encourage customers to get their palm prints scanned, share their bank card information and provide their phone numbers to set up their biometric accounts. Once set up, all customers need to do is to hover a palm over the scanning device to pay —just as you would place a hand on the Bible— and they are good to go.
Be Aware of Potential Risks!
Whole Foods claims that this service will make make it quicker and easier for customers to pay for their groceries. May be so, but such overengineered "convenience" systems can be extremely risky, as people's biometric data is collected and stored on cloud (and sometimes sold).
Despite the assurances of any technology company, storing biometric data in the cloud is disaster in the waiting.
The consequences of a data breach can be extremely severe. Obviously, when (not if) your biometric data gets stolen, you can’t exactly call the body bank and order a new palm.
There are several other risks with such overengineered "convenience" systems. Biometrics technology assumes that a person’s body doesn't change. Yet, life events like weight gain or loss, injury or disability can surely effect a person’s ability to authenticate, as data captured by these systems cannot be modified once they are created.
So, what do you do? Just go to Sprouts, Trader Joe’s or Aldi instead.