What if you could pay for your groceries using your veins?
Amazon filed a patent for technology that could identify you by scanning the wrinkles in the palm of your hand and by using a light to see beneath your skin to your blood vessels. The resulting images could be used to identify you as a shopper at Amazon Go stores.
It was previously reported that the Seattle-based tech giant might install these hi-tech scanners in Whole Foods grocery stores. However, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published an application on Thursday that suggests the e-commerce behemoth sets its sites on Amazon Go stores.
Many of the inventors named on the application include Amazon Go executives such as vice president Dili Kumar and senior manager Manoj Aggarwal. Engineer Nikolai Orlov, who previously lead Amazon Go projects, was also listed as an inventor.
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How does vein scanning work?
While fingerprint scanners have been around for years, Amazon hopes to innovate by developing a personal identification system that you don’t have to touch.
Imagine hovering your hand in front of an infrared light as a camera snaps two images — one from the surface, and one that looks for “deeper characteristics such as veins.” An internal computer system would then identify you based on that information.
“Accurate and fast identification of a user provides useful information that may be used in a variety of ways,” Amazon says in the patent filing. “For example, entry to a material handling facility (facility), office, transportation facility, or other location may be controlled based on user identity.”
In another example, the identity of a person could be used to link them to “an associated account,” or bank account. The internal management system could track what item a customer picked from a shelf, Amazon says. And after you take an item from the shelf, the tech can trigger inventory replenishments.
What about privacy?
Internal hand scanning is supposed to be more much reliable than a credit card swipe in the battle against identity theft. “Traditional systems for identifying users suffer from several significant drawbacks including susceptibility to fraud, speed, accuracy, and operational limitations,” Amazon says.
Biometric identification systems address this by using characteristics that are “difficult or impossible to copy or be transferred.” It’s unclear how far into the project Amazon is. It’s also unclear if or when customers would see such technology rolled out.
If it’s ever deployed, the move would give the tech giant even more data on users as privacy and security become a major national issue for consumers and government bodies alike.
Like facial recognition technology, hand scanners that can read your veins raise questions about the use of biodata. After all, it’s fairly easy to change your password or close an account after a data breach, but you can’t change your internal vein structure.
Follow Dalvin Brown on Twitter: @Dalvin_Brown.
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