Today, visitors to Amazon Go cashierless stores need to scan an app to get in. In the future, Amazon may instead ask to just scan their hands instead.
The US Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Amazon on Thursday for a touchless scanning system that would identify people not by their faces but by characteristics associated with the palms of their hands, including wrinkles and veins, The verge reported.
It was reported that, the filing is a glimpse at Amazon’s ideas for putting its own tech-forward spin on how people shop in brick-and-mortar stores, now that it dominates many types of online shopping in the US.
According to The Verge, a new potential method for identifying people using biometrics will also likely raise questions for a company that is already facing increased scrutiny over privacy concerns related to its products, ranging from its Alexa voice assistant to its Ring home security gadgets.
The inventors also describe the placement of scanners at entrances or exits of a given location, and associating a scan with a person’s account so that “if the user picks an item from an inventory location and leaves the facility, their account may be billed for that item.”
An illustration associated with the patent application shows a person scanning their hand at an entrance gate that resembles the one in Amazon Go stores.
