Amazon One, the palm scanning tech that you can use to pay at Panera, has gotten an upgrade. The payment technology can now verify the age of its user, allowing customers to purchase drinks without having to pull out their IDs.
Amazon announced the new feature today on its website. The company said that the age verification feature was designed to solve the “customer pain point” of using your hand to pay for alcohol only to have to pull out your wallet anyway to flash your ID. When a 21+ customer places their hand over an Amazon One point-of-sale device, the software will process the payment as well as verify that the customer is of legal age. Amazon says that Coors Field, the Denver-based baseball stadium and home of the Colorado Rockies, will be the first place to utilise Amazon One’s palm-based age verification.
“Hearing from Amazon One customers across the country, we understand that they love the convenience it delivers: shorter wait times, quick access to buildings and locations, being able to link their loyalty memberships, and now an easy way to grab their beer,” Colorado Rockies senior director of Food Service Operations and Development John McKay said in Amazon’s announcement.
In order to access the age verification feature when it rolls out to a location near you, you’ll need to upload photos of the front and back of a government issued ID to the Amazon One webpage as well as a selfie to verify that it’s your ID. Amazon says that this sensitive data will not be stored by Amazon One, claiming that the tech follows an international standard of information security known as ISO 27001. When a customer places their hand above the Amazon One hub, the bartender will see a message confirming that the patron is of age along with their uploaded selfie — so, make sure you look good.
Amazon began touting a palm-based payment in 2020, relying on each human’s unique palm signature to secure their payment — much the way your face/fingerprint or credit card chip would. Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver being the first non-Amazon location to get Amazon One, with the venue primarily using it in place of tickets. Last summer, Amazon announced that it would be bringing Amazon One to over 65 Whole Foods locations across California.