Whole Foods will soon allow customers to pay for groceries using their parent company’s palm scanning technology.
Amazon said Wednesday that its palm scanning system (currently used in about a dozen of its brick and mortar stores) will debut at a Whole Foods in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, the first of many launches planned in other places.
The system uses Amazon One technology, which uses high-tech imaging and algorithms to create and detect a “single palm signature” based on the crests, lines, and veins of each person’s hands.
Its high-tech sensors do not require users to touch the scanning surface, as does Apple’s fingerprint technology.
Instead, palm reading technology uses computer vision and depth geometry to process and identify the shape and size of each hand it scans before loading a credit card into the file.
The company said palm scanning technology will be offered as one of the many payment options at participating Whole Foods stores and will not affect the job responsibilities of store employees.
“At Whole Foods Market, we are always looking for new and innovative ways to enhance our customers’ shopping experience, ”said Arun Rajan, senior vice president of technology and chief technology officer of Whole Foods Market.
Palm images used by Amazon One are encrypted and stored in a “highly secure” cloud, and customers can request that their Palm data be deleted.
The company claims that palm scanning technology is more private than other biometric alternatives, such as facial recognition.
Amazon One is based on the “Just Walk Out” technology that Amazon uses in its Go stores, which detects items that shoppers collect and collects once they leave, without the need for a payline
Amazon also plans to expand the technology without ATMs to Whole Foods, The Post reported.
Meanwhile, the technology could be good for its end result. The online giant aims to sell its palm scanning technology to other companies such as retailers, stadiums and office buildings.
Last September, he said he was in “active discussions with several potential customers.” But it is unclear whether he has advanced on any of these fronts.