A month ago, I made a bold prediction at the Shopper Brain conference in Dublin, an event focused on advanced shopper marketing. In a last-minute change to my speech, I said that Amazon One palm recognition technology is the future of biometric identity verification.
Amazon One palm scanner confirms payment and loyalty info in seconds.
When I asked who had used Amazon One, not one person in the audience raised their hand. This was unsurprising, since Amazon has been slowly rolling out the system in its U.S. Whole Foods and Amazon stores, select Panera stores, and some entertainment venues. No doubt many dismissed my prediction as overly enthusiastic hyperbole. But was it?
My Eye-Opening Experience
On my trip to Dublin, I experienced the two other principal biometric ID systems. To clear airport security, I used a Clear kiosk to scan my eyes. It worked reasonably well, offering robotic instructions to move farther or closer. I’ve learned to open my eyes widely to facilitate the scan. Once it successfully scans your irises there’s a multi-second delay as it matches them and authenticates you.
Later, to board my United flight to Dublin, I used facial recognition instead of a boarding pass. In the past, boarding an international flight required an electronic or paper boarding pass along with a visual passport check by a gate agent.
Now, at many airports the airline boarding process interfaces with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The CBP has the flight manifest that lists the passengers, and if the facial scan at the gate matches the CBP’s stored information, the passenger can board. This took a few seconds but was probably no slower than a gate agent examining your boarding pass and passport photo.
While both of these processes were relatively quick and painless, I realized that neither was nearly as fast or intuitive as checking out at Whole Foods with Amazon One. I’ve found that my palm can be recognized in a second or two, and matching with my Prime account takes a second or two more. To borrow the slogan from a popular sandwich shop, it’s freaky fast.
Notably, I never struggle with getting my hand positioned as often happens with iris scanners - it’s nearly automatic, and a helpful circle on the scanner guides you if necessary.
For a moment, I imagined getting from the airport parking lot to my seat on the airplane with no boarding pass, no phone, no ID... just my palm. It won’t happen soon, but there’s no technical reason that it couldn’t be that easy.
Amazon One palm scanner verifies customer ID
Amazon One’s Advantages
Beyond its fast and intuitive interface, Amazon One offers significant advantages over other biometric ID systems. According to the firm’s data, their system offers an accuracy of 99.9999%, and they say it is 100 times more accurate than scanning two irises. By comparison, recent data suggests that the best facial recognition algorithms deliver 99.7% to 99.8% accuracy.
The Amazon One technology uses not just a surface scan as with fingerprint readers but a subcutaneous scan that looks through the skin to the underlying blood vessels.
They also claim to be far better for individual privacy than other methods. Facial recognition can identify individuals from a distance without their knowledge. In contrast, palm scans happen inches above the scanner and can’t be conducted without the individual’s knowledge.
Amazon also says their system is unaffected by gender and race.
Beyond the characteristics of Amazon One itself, the global infrastructure and expertise of Amazon Web Services can likely facilitate integration and rollout for new clients.
Amazon One’s Disadvantages
At my local Whole Foods, I see surprisingly few other customers using it. Part of this is familiarity - when I’ve engaged with customers while waiting to check out, many have no idea what Amazon One is or how to register one’s palm. They continue to scan the bar code in the Whole Foods app to get their Prime discount and pay with a physical credit card.
More significantly, despite the privacy advantages claimed by Amazon One, there is apprehension at multiple levels about giving biometric data to a tech giant like Amazon. Chatting with Whole Foods customers and even the occasional worker, I’ve observed a visceral reaction to sharing their biometric information. It’s not so much a specific concern of possible misuse as an emotional response to giving up something that private.
And, even politicians are concerned. Early in Amazon One’s rollout, a group of senators expressed their concern about Amazon’s use of customer biometrics.
The other obstacle facing Amazon One is that their biggest and best potential customers consider Amazon a competitor.
Retail checkout is the perfect use case for Amazon One - a single palm scan brings up the customer’s payment and loyalty information. No credit card, no smartphone, no app, no key tag - no physical item is needed. One tech writer termed it “scarily convenient.” Leave your wallet at home or phone in the car? (I’ve done both.) No problem, talk to the hand.
But, will Walmart or Target sign up to have Amazon handle their payments and loyalty info? And even if all of that data is well insulated from Amazon, do they want to give their biggest competitor another revenue stream? Unlikely.
What’s Next For Amazon One?
Amazon is continuing to refine Amazon One as it rolls out to more locations. And, the network effect is far from kicking in. The more locations that offer Amazon One and the more customers who enable it, the more compelling the technology is for new business clients.
I expect to see Amazon One pushing to get more customers to register their palms at Whole Foods and other locations. They could offer gift cards or even a human ambassador to encourage customers to sign up and answer their questions and concerns. To convince others to adopt the technology, Amazon needs to show that their own customers love it and use it habitually.
Even if retail competitors are unlikely to adopt Amazon One, there are countless other opportunities for a robust, accurate, and fast identification system. Spinning Amazon One off into a separate company or licensing its technology to independent providers might even persuade big retailers and grocers to adopt it.
In my next article, I’ll describe one initiative that may carry Amazon One into a trove of new opportunities.
