New “Palm Reading” System Unveiled As Technology Picks Up Speed

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(RightWing.org) – The bakery-café chain Panera Bread has a reputation for embracing new technology. For instance, in 2014, the company introduced Panera 2.0, an integrated system for digital ordering and payments using tablet kiosks and smartphones, bypassing the need for customers to stand in line. Continuing this trend, the restaurant chain recently announced its decision to test drive a new palm reading payment system as the emerging technology picks up speed.

On March 22, Panera Bread announced its decision to roll out Amazon One at select bakery-cafés in St. Louis. The company plans to expand the use of the system to additional locations nationwide in the coming months. According to the announcement, customers will be able to access their loyalty program and pay for their purchases using their palm prints.

In late 2020, Amazon launched its new contactless payment system, Amazon One, by offering new users $10 in promotional credit to register their palm print biometrics and link them to their accounts at one of their checkout-free locations.

As one might expect, the new payment system has its detractors. Privacy experts weighed in on the system shortly after its launch. According to critics, Amazon’s new biometric scanning devices could present a security risk since it uploads images of users’ palm prints into the cloud.

Amazon spokeswoman Kerri Catallozzi tried to assuage those fears at the time by issuing a statement to media outlets. She explained that the Big Tech giant takes data security “very seriously,” adding the company is “confident the cloud is highly secure.”

However, as the Firewall Times recently reported, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has suffered several data breaches over the last few years. The most recent one occurred on March 13 when a ransomware group announced it hacked Amazon’s doorbell security service. Breaches go back to January 2012, when a hacker exposed the data of as many as 24 million accounts from Zappos, an Amazon-owned online store.

Additionally, Technocracy News and Trends posted an editorial statement in a recent article warning that national chains like Panera could replace the use of cash altogether with contactless payment systems like Amazon One. The website reinforced the claim by posting a tweet from the World Economic Forum applauding the idea of “dethroning cash as king.”

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