Amazon’s palm biometrics rollout reaches Denver-area Whole Foods
Denver shoppers can pay at the checkout lane with a swipe of their hand using Amazon One’s palm recognition service.
Biometric payments are now available at eleven Whole Foods Market stores in the metro Denver area.
Shoppers must first enroll in the Amazon One program, which can be done in less than a minute, according to Amazon. Payment is then made by hovering a palm over an Amazon One scanner at the checkout lane for a few seconds.
The SouthGlenn store is also offering Amazon Dash Cart. This smart shopping cart automatically tallies items in it and charges them to the shopper’s Amazon credit or debit account.
Amazon chose palm recognition as its biometric identification of choice because “you can’t determine a person’s identity by looking at an image of their palm,” said the company, adding that it was contactless and required an intentional gesture.
Amazon has yet to indicate when it plans to make the service available at other Whole Foods locations across the U.S.
Last month, according to Vice President Dilip Kumar, Amazon announced that its cashier-less or palm-scanning checkout technology has been deployed in more than 200 locations both within and outside of the company.
Kumar notes that despite economic headwinds, there is a demand for Amazon’s contactless biometric technology, with installations at independent retailers, stadiums and universities.
Around the same time, the U.S. chain Panera Bread announced it had installed Amazon One devices in two locations in greater St. Louis. Amazon says the deployment will expand to 10-20 Panera cafes in the coming months. Customers can also use their palm swipes to pull up restaurant rewards accounts and order histories.
