Amazon Is Paying You For Your Palm Print, Supposedly Worth $10
ID 72679549 © Jonathan Weiss | Dreamstime.com
Many of us are aware that most apps we use track our data. Be it our shopping habits or user demographics, companies sift through the information we allow them to access, even selling it on to third parties after. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that companies are interested in a new frontier of data: biometrics.
Now, Amazon is offering US$10 in credits to customers who register their palm prints in its checkout-free stores. Your palm prints will then be linked directly to your Amazon account.
As per TechCrunch, the retail giant had first introduced biometric palm print scanners last year, allowing customers to pay for goods simply by waving their hands.
Its palm-scanning hardware “captures the minute characteristics of your palm – both surface-area details like lines and ridges as well as subcutaneous features such as vein patterns – to create your palm signature.” The data is then stored in the Amazon cloud and can be used to confirm your identity when you’re shopping in-store.
While it’s unclear what exactly the company plans to do with your palm print data, it said it will use an unspecified “subset” of anonymous palm print data to improve the technology. By linking it to your existing Amazon account, it will be part of data such as your shopping habits and in-store purchases that the company uses to target you with advertisements and promotions.
A word of caution: your palm print data will be stored indefinitely, unless you choose to delete it manually, or if you don’t use the feature for over two years.
While it may seem like a fuss-free way to check out of stores when you’re in a hurry, it still remains to be seen how companies are planning to use customers’ biometric data, which is still very much of an ethical gray area.
Image via Amazon One
[via TechCrunch, images from various sources]
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