Paying for your groceries by just scanning your palm as you leave sounds pretty convenient, right? But what if your palm print gets stolen?
Amazon's new device lets users pay with the palm of their hands, but does it go far enough to protect privacy?
Amazon is adding its Amazon One palm payment to more than 65 Whole Foods stores in California. To pay, you simply wave your palm over the reader and you’re done. It’s supposed to be convenient, but the cons may outweigh the pros, especially since it’s not exactly convenient.
"A palmprint makes paying easier because it's unique to you, it's (hopefully) not easily lost or stolen, and you always have it with you," financial tech expert and advisor David Shipper told Lifewire via email. "So it scores very high from a convenience standpoint. However, there's always some risk involved in handing over personal biometric information to a third party. From a risk standpoint, it's probably safer to store that information encrypted on a personal device."
To use Amazon One, you first need to link your palmprint to your credit card and provide your phone number. Then, you scan your palm instead of your credit card to pay at checkout.
