Amazon announced Thursday the launch of its new app for Amazon One, its contactless palm recognition service that allows customers to hover their palm over a device in order to purchase from select places, including more than 500 Whole Foods Market stores, Amazon stores and more than 150 third-party locations.
Instead of signing up for Amazon One at a physical retail location, users can now download the Amazon One app (available for iOS or Android devices) and take a photo of their palm right at home. Once they create an online profile and add a payment method, the users’ palm is added to the system and can now be used for payment, entry, age verification and loyalty rewards at hundreds of stores, stadiums, airports, fitness centers and more.
The company explains that all palm images taken via the new app are encrypted and sent to a secure Amazon One domain in the AWS cloud. The images can’t be saved or downloaded to a mobile device.
Amazon says that Amazon One has been used more than 8 million times.
The app launch follows Amazon’s expansion of the technology for enterprise identity purposes, which gives companies the ability to authenticate employees when entering.
AWS brings Amazon One palm-scanning authentication to the enterprise
