With the introduction of Amazon’s new palm recognition technology in its Amazon Go stores, the company sees a brighter future for this seamless tech. Aside from Seattle area stores, this new tech can be incorporated to serve various other purposes in large stadiums, offices, and other secured locations.
What We Know:
- Customers at the stores near Amazon’s campus in Washington can flash a palm for entry into secured areas and buy goods. The Amazon Go stores are the company’s most recent attempt in years to make a brand new and seamless shopping experience. Offering nearly the same products as most grocery stores around the country, you’ll never have to wait in line or checkout.
- With the addition of the new palm recognition technology as a means to enter and exit areas, that process will be even more streamlined than before. According to Dilip Kumar, vice president of Physical Retail & Technology, Amazon specifically chose palm recognition tech because it’s more private than other biometric technology. A person would physically need to bare their palm over a scanner of an Amazon One device.
- In a world now dominated by social distancing and contactless everything, this new tech couldn’t come at a better time. Kumar even said so in a blog post on Tuesday. “It’s contactless, which we think customers will appreciate, especially in current times.”
- Much like the use of human fingerprints the past couple years by other companies, such as Apple, every single palm is also unique. Where the two starts to split off is the fact that palms can’t be used as a more accurate means of identification because more body-specific information is needed. Due to security reasons, Amazon has stated that all palm images will never be stored in their devices.
- Instead, all palm imagery will be stored and encrypted in a very secure sector of the cloud that was custom built by Amazon. Customers will also be given the choice to completely erase all of their data from the system at any time.
- Moving forward, the multinational tech giant will plan on rolling out the Amazon One palm recognition to all of their Amazon stores across the nation. This will also include the Whole Foods Market grocery chain, which was acquired by them just two years ago. Amazon firmly believes this tech will benefit other industries as well that require these sorts of verification.
- “We believe Amazon One has broad applicability beyond our retail stores, so we also plan to offer the service to third parties like retailers, stadiums, and office buildings so that more people can benefit from this ease and convenience in more places,” Kumar stated.
For now, the technology is being used only at two Amazon Go stores, but they hope others will begin adopting palm identification. Amazon Go made history by being the first-ever cashier lineless store in the supermarket industry. Conveniently introduced earlier this year, Amazon customers will soon have more locations around the country to experience a quicker way to shop.
