Whole Foods, the supermarket chain of the technological giant Amazon, will enable before the end of the year in its US stores the possibility of making payments showing the palm of the hand, a biometric method criticized by groups that defend the privacy of citizens and that Amazon already applies in other of its stores.
In a statement, the company explains that it has already introduced the palm reading system, called Amazon One, in Whole Foods supermarkets, and that by the end of the year it will be available in more than 500 stores across the country.
This technology, whose use began two years ago and is already being applied in Amazon Go stores, has received much criticism from people and organizations who see that it could pose a risk to the protection of people’s identity.
Last March, they filed a class action lawsuit in New York that was supported by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) organization, which rejects the use of this biometric recognition technology.
According to the complaint, Amazon has not complied with a regulation passed in New York in January 2021, which dictates that establishments that collect, store or share their customers’ biometric identification information must report this practice before people enter the establishments.
For its part, the technology giant maintains that the information collected is protected and that it is not shared with third parties.
In the statement released this Thursday, Amazon maintains that its Amazon One technology has also begun to be adopted by other chains, such as the Panera Bread cafeteria, at the Colorado Rockies baseball team stadium, in Denver (Colorado) and in some stores located in the commercial area of ????airports.
According to his note, Amazon One already has more than 3 million registered users.
Amazon explains that in order to make the payment with the palm of the hand, the customer must register online, along with their credit or debit card, their Amazon account and a cell phone.
You will then complete the process in a physical store by registering your palm on an Amazon One device. To promote its new payment system, Amazon offers discounts to its users.
“Since we’ve introduced Amazon One to Whole Foods Market stores over the past two years, we’ve seen that customers love the convenience it provides, and we’re excited to bring Amazon One to all of our customers across the United States,” said the company’s chief technology officer, Leandro Balbinot.
