Amazon’s palm-recognition technology can now verify your age to buy alcohol
Amazon has announced a new way to apply its palm-recognition technology, which it uses for contactless payments: verifying a person’s age. So from now on, there’s no need to take out your ID if the bar has an Amazon One scanner – just scan your palm.
Of course, to do this, you first need to verify your age with Amazon One. You will need to scan your palms, provide a photo ID, payment information and take a selfie. Only after that you can use the service to confirm your age. The bartender or cashier will see the message “21+” and your selfie, so they won’t need to ask you for ID. After confirming your age with the scanner, you can scan your palm again to make the payment.
Amazon currently uses palm scanners for shopping at its Go and Fresh stores, as well as Whole Foods stores and some other locations. But you can test the scanners with the support of the age verification function so far only at the Coors Field stadium in Colorado. However, the company plans to expand the number of such places in the coming months.
Amazon notes that the palm-recognition technology uses cameras to match “many aspects of your palm,” including lines, ridges, and veins, to images stored in the cloud. This may pose a certain privacy threat, however, the company assures that users’ palm recognition data is securely protected.