Amazon begins large-scale rollout of palmprint-based payments

Enlarge / A customer uses a palmprint scanner in this promotional image for Amazon One. Amazon

Amazon will expand its Amazon One palmprint payment system to dozens of Whole Foods locations, marking the most significant expansion of the technology introduced in 2020.

Amazon One allows customers to quickly pay at points of sale using only their palm prints after registering a scan of their hand through an interface in Amazon's kiosks. Palmprint data is encrypted and stored on Amazon's servers. And before you worry too much about the transmission of COVID-19 or future pandemics, Amazon One works when you run your palm over the scanner, unlike some fingerprint technologies.

Amazon initially added the technology to its now-shuttered Amazon Go stores and Amazon Books outlets. He then visited several Whole Foods stores in the Seattle area. (Amazon has owned the Whole Foods grocery chain since 2017.)

Now Amazon Go will expand to 65 Whole Foods stores across California. The rollout is beginning in Malibu and Santa Monica, with additional locations rolling out in Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and the Bay Area over the coming weeks. Amazon has previously rolled out the technology in a few select locations in California, but never on this scale.

Time will tell if it will prevail; the benefit to consumers might seem minimal compared to other contactless payments over the phone. Amazon has also been exploring more radical payment technologies, like one that lets you just grab what you want and walk away without visiting a register, provided you have an account with the company.

And the company's storage of customers' palm prints has drawn criticism and concern.

Amazon One opened up to third parties in September, starting with music venues. But the famous Red Rocks amphitheater outside Denver has abandoned plans to embrace the technology as artists and privacy advocates have launched a campaign called "Amazon Doesn't Rock" to convince sites not to not use biometric authentication.

Before that, TechCrunch reported that US senators had contacted Amazon with pointed questions about how the company would use palmprint data. Several weeks earlier, Amazon launched a program to offer customers a $10 credit to register their palm data in the system.