Burt Flickinger, Managing Director of the Strategic Resource Group, on the impact of cashless stores on the retail industry.
Whole Foods shoppers in Austin, Texas can now buy their groceries with just a swipe of their hand.
The new Amazon One device is linked to a customer’s credit or debit card and can scan their unique palm signature in about a second.
Austin is the first city to receive the Amazon One device outside of Seattle, where the company has rolled out the feature at nine Whole Foods locations.
Amazon One’s new palm-reading service only requires a customer to place their palm over the (Amazon/Fox News)
“Amazon One is about making everyday activities like checking out in a store easier and more convenient for customers,” said Thi Luu, director of product management for Amazon Physical Retail and Technology, on Tuesday.
“We built Amazon One to give people a fast, reliable, and secure way to identify themselves or authorize a transaction while moving seamlessly through their day.”
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The palmistry service has raised privacy concerns among some officials. Last year, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about the company’s biometric capture practices Data.
“Amazon’s expansion of Amazon One’s collection of biometric data raises serious questions about Amazon’s plans for this data and respect for user privacy, including how Amazon might use the data for advertising and tracking purposes,” the senators wrote.
People walk past a whole foods market in New York City, United States, February 7, 2017. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid / Reuters)
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Amazon said when it launched the technology in 2020 that “the Amazon One device is protected by multiple security controls.”
“Images are encrypted and sent to a highly secure area we created specifically for Amazon One in the cloud, where we create your Palm signature,” wrote Dilip Kumar, vice president of Amazon Physical Retail and Technology, in 2020.