All 500-plus Whole Foods stores will soon let you pay with a palm scan

Last time I went into Whole Foods, they wanted to link my purchase to an Amazon account. I certainly didn't want that to happen, so I lied and claimed not to have an account, but it didn't matter - they looked it up anyway when I gave them my credit card. I had thought that sort of thing was incompatible with PCI rules, but apparently not; or maybe Amazon is too big to care.

At any rate I won't be putting my hands on any scanners in Whole Foods. Perhaps I should also be wary of any unmarked glass surfaces in the store which might contain hidden scanners, since they obviously don't care much whether we consent to their data collection, and might just try to capture all of our palmprints anyway...

What, Apple Pay/$GooglePayThing wasn't good enough? What problem does this solve other $PROBLEM that Amazon is having? Because I'm trying to picture myself as someone that would use this. I guess I'd have to be tap-to-pay-phobic (or incapable), and leave my wallet at home (because there's no chance of being pulled over for a traffic infraction).

I guess I would have to be capable of simultaneously saying, "cool!" without also saying, "OMG, what a privacy nightmare!" Seems kinda like a small market, but I'll bet money I'm quite wrong or Amazon wouldn't be doing it.

These devices rolled out at a local store, and the self-checkouts aggressively push the option. I was deeply creeped out by it, given that one's palm is just as personal as one's fingerprint and there's a credible risk of the data being sold/stolen.

That sounds like a privacy nightmare come true. What else will they use the palm scan for?

Here is how you unenroll if you are as concerned as I was. https://one.amazon.com/data-deletion-request/verification

So, they are trying to make it possible for someone to go grocery shopping without bringing anything with them.

But the ability to drop the wallet has already been made possible with the different phone payment apps… and no one really travels without their phone anymore.

So who is going to use this? I know I’m not, but even those who aren’t as privacy conscious aren’t going to see any real benefit… unless I’m missing something.

Maybe there is another shoe to drop that makes it valuable enough to justify the (likely huge) capital outlay? I just can’t think of what it is.

Surely the intersection between "person who shops for groceries without any mobile device or even wallet" and "person willing to send their palmprint to Amazon" is nonexistent.

I wonder how much they'll need to discount in order to capture this data over time, or if this just withers up and disappears.

I feel like this misses the mark for what Whole Foods shoppers know and appreciate about life.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I predict this flops.

People willing to pay a premium for natural healthy foods don't seem like the crowd who wants their biometrics captured by a megacorp

I'll give em' a palm scan, alright - the two palms I'm sitting on right now.

I choose not to participate in this aspect of our dystopian future.

Pseudo-end times conspiracy theorists won’t like this…

I just assumed that all of them had it... my local has had it for a year at least... zero chance I'm doing that.

This will be the Amazon phone of payment systems.

No thank you.