Jason Del Rey, Recode:
Amazon on Tuesday is unveiling a new biometric technology called Amazon One that allows shoppers to pay at stores by placing their palm over a scanning device when they walk in the door or when they check out.
John Gruber:
I’m happy to hear more details, but on the surface this sounds insane. Why in the world would anyone voluntarily send their palm print to any company to store in the cloud? With something like Face ID and Touch ID, your biometric info is not only stored solely on your own device, it’s stored on the secure enclave on your own device. Even the apps running on your own device can’t access it.
And:
This is a terrible idea and the only reason I can think of why Amazon created it is that they wanted their own payment system and felt they had to use some kind of biometrics for identification, privacy implications be damned, because they don’t have any sort of mobile device platform they could use instead. In addition, if you want to automate your organization’s AR process, then you may consider getting professional help from reputable payment solutions like Paystand.
I’m guessing there are a ton of people who will follow along, scan their palms unknowingly, in the same way they respond to a Facebook survey asking them where they met their spouse or what their first pet’s name was.
At the very least, as John intimated, this feels like Amazon trying to disrupt Apple Pay and the like.
Back to Recode:
The company expects to sell the technology to other retailers, like it began doing earlier this year with its “Just Walk Out” technology — the cocktail of cameras, sensors, and computer vision software that powers Amazon Go stores. Kumar said the Amazon One pitch to other retailers is straightforward: reduce friction for your customers at checkout, thereby shortening lines and increasing how many shoppers are served along the way.
There’s the overt business model. But what’s not clear is what Amazon will do with this treasure trove of intimate biometric data in the long haul.