Latest news with #AmazonOne
Vox
3 days ago
- Vox
Why does Amazon want to scan your palm at the doctor's office?
is a senior technology correspondent at Vox and author of the User Friendly newsletter. He's spent 15 years covering the intersection of technology, culture, and politics at places like The Atlantic, Gizmodo, and Vice. Amazon One palm scanners are in use at hundreds of locations in the United States, including NYU Langone Health hospitals and clinics. Vox/Getty Images An Amazon-branded palm scanner greeted me at my last doctor's office visit a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what I'd call the experience. Unnerving? Orwellian? Amazon One is a relatively new service from Amazon that lets businesses verify your identity after you wave your hand over a sensor. The technology first rolled out in the short-lived Amazon Go convenience stores in 2020 and is now a way to pay for groceries at Whole Foods. It's also used for payment and age verification at a few sports and entertainment venues, including at Coors Field in Denver. And as of March, you can also scan your palm with Amazon One to check in at NYU Langone Health locations, which is where I encountered it. So far, you won't be forced to scan your palm to get a beer at a Rockies game or see an NYU doctor, but it's an option. In addition to its experiments in public venues, Amazon One is marketing its scanners as an alternative to the fobs and codes that let employees into their office buildings. Amazon is also working with hotel companies and manufacturers that make security doors and safety deposit boxes to incorporate its palm scanner. User Friendly A weekly dispatch to make sure tech is working for you, instead of overwhelming you. From senior technology correspondent Adam Clark Estes. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Biometric scanning refers to the process of capturing your unique physical characteristics in order to confirm your identity. Whether it's your palm, your fingerprint, your eyeball, or your face, the concept can feel creepy or invasive to some. Biometric scanning can happen without your consent, as was the case with Clearview AI, the company that built a massive facial recognition database from billions of publicly available photos online. There's also a permanence to the collection of biometric data. Once a company has the details of your face, you don't have much control over how that data is used. After all, you can't easily go out and get a new face. Something seems fundamentally threatening about a future in which big tech companies use biometrics to serve as the gatekeepers of our digital identities. Millions of people volunteer their faces or fingerprints, nevertheless, as a quick and convenient way to verify their identities and make life a little easier. With Apple's Face ID or Google's Face Unlock, you can keep the contents of your phone from prying eyes but avoid typing out an annoying passcode every time you want to check your texts. With Clear, you can skip the line at airport security. And with Amazon One, you can save a couple minutes of waiting at the doctor's office by scanning your palm instead of talking to a human. Nevertheless, something seems fundamentally threatening about a future in which big tech companies use biometrics to serve as the gatekeepers of our digital identities. What's especially disconcerting to me about Amazon One is that your biometric data is just another source of data that the company has about you. The tech giant, after all, is a massive enterprise whose businesses span from its eponymous marketplace to a health care company to a multibillion-dollar advertising network. It's not always clear how engaging with one Amazon-owned entity affects your experience with others. AWS, the Amazon division that operates Amazon One, specifies in a supplemental privacy notice that it will not share your palm data — effectively, the image of your hand — with third parties, although it also collects other data, including your phone number and your PIN, when you sign up. AWS, meanwhile, is clear in its broader privacy policy that it can share data about you with third parties, including advertisers. Then there is which is governed by its own separate privacy policies. Related Why your Amazon recommendations are getting a little too creepy When I asked Amazon about all this, spokesperson Alison Milligan said that your Amazon One profile is separate from your profile, and that Amazon One profile data is not used for marketing or shared with advertisers. 'Amazon One palm data is not accessible to Amazon business units outside of Amazon One,' Milligan said. Meanwhile, NYU Langone Health spokesperson Arielle Sklar told me, 'We do not share personal information with Amazon One, and Amazon One does not store any protected health information.' Still, privacy watchdogs caution that when it comes to massive tech companies, it's best to proceed with caution — the capabilities are enormous, and privacy policies can change. 'Amazon likely can infer unbelievably sensitive health care data about people, partly because they have so many different programs and so many different services,' said Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC. 'All of this stuff gets tied together and can be incredibly revealing.' Amazon calls its biometric offering a 'palm-based identity service.' You might call it the Everything Scanner. The key of the future is your body The concept of a digital key isn't all that different from physical locks that have been around since ancient Egypt. A password, in theory, is a key that lets you into a website or an account. Credit cards are a type of key too, since they unlock access to a bank account to make a purchase. The big change with biometrics, however, is that you no longer carry a key around. You are the key. The core argument in favor of biometric scanners is that they're more convenient and more secure than the old carry-the-key method. An Amazon One scanner works in less than a second, while tapping your credit card and entering a PIN can take several seconds. Those seconds add up, not just for you, the customer, but also for the business. Both parties also have to consider that credit cards and numbers get stolen with startling regularity. 'It's a lot harder to steal somebody's fingerprint or face print or palm print than it is to steal their cards out of their wallet or their pocket,' said Ash Johnson, senior policy manager at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, or ITIF. But it's not impossible, and when biometric data is stolen, it's incredibly valuable to hackers, because unlike a password, it cannot be changed. There was a major breach of biometric data in 2019, for example, when security researchers obtained the fingerprint and facial recognition data of over a million people. Had they been bad actors, they could have used the data — the code that represents real fingerprints and faces — to break into office buildings. Amazon also says it chose palm-scanning over other biometric approaches because palms don't reveal as much about a person's identity as a face scan would, and because a palm scan 'requires someone to make an intentional gesture,' which protects against unauthorized scans. I actually believe biometric scans are largely secure and the convenience is worth it for certain uses. I'm an outspoken fan of Apple's Face ID technology, and I've allowed Clear to scan my eyes in order to get through the airport security line faster. It's possible that my biometric data will one day end up on the dark web, but I was willing to take that risk when I was about to miss my flight. At the time, I hadn't considered whether I'd make the same trade-off in order to save a couple minutes at the grocery store or in a waiting room. The Everything Scanner It's not the idea of palm-scanning at my doctor's office that bothers me. The new system gives me pause because it's powered by Amazon. Like the vast majority of Americans, I like Amazon. I'm an Amazon Prime member, and a regular Amazon Fresh shopper. I visit my local Whole Foods at least once a week, and just as often, I watch movies on Amazon Prime Video. Thanks to all of these touch points, Amazon knows a lot about me, and I continue to be surprised by the ways Amazon combines my data in different ways — like the time Amazon recommended prescription medication based on my grocery order. It wasn't immediately clear to me what would happen when I put my palm on an Amazon One scanner at my doctor's office. Would basic details of my visit, like the time and location, get logged somewhere in my main Amazon account? Would I get ads for Ace bandages after visiting a sports medicine doctor? Would I get deals on heart-healthy options at Whole Foods after an appointment at a cardiologist? And what if Amazon changes its mind about protecting my biometric data or goes bankrupt, like 23andMe? Amazon denies that it's sharing data across its businesses this way, but it's hard not to feel wary. It starts to feel overwhelming when a website I signed up for 30 years ago to buy cheap books now wants details about my body in order to verify my identity. After winding through the labyrinths of Amazon's various privacy policies and even talking to the company, I'm still not entirely confident that I know exactly how it all works. I definitely don't believe that Amazon has access to my health records, and it's very clear that the image of my palm — my 'palm data' — is well protected. But the uncertainty surrounding any other metadata is enough to steer me toward a human receptionist for my next doctor's appointment. I also can't escape the implications of all this. Tech giants, like Amazon, only know growth, and so they continue to reach into new industries. That's business, sure, but it starts to feel overwhelming when a website I signed up for 30 years ago to buy cheap books now wants details about my body in order to verify my identity.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon shoppers can't stop buying this portable charger — it's a whopping $260 off
If you've ever been stuck with a dead device and no way to charge it, you know exactly how panic-inducing it can be. If you want to avoid that situation, having a portable charger on standby could be a real game-changer. This Power Bank Solar Charger is a favourite among Amazon Canada shoppers — in fact, more than 3,000 Amazon customers bought one in the past month. And right now, you can shop this popular power bank for a whopping 87 per cent off — which is even lower than its Amazon's Big Spring Sale price. You can add it to your cart for just $40 for a limited time. It's a great time to stock up on one ahead of spring and summer camping or travel. Interested? Keep scrolling for all the details and see why shoppers call it a "super handy device" that gives them "peace of mind." This portable charger has three USB C ports, meaning you can charge multiple devices at once. It's heat-resistant, waterproof, dust-proof and drop-proof, so it's likely to be safe no matter your environment. The device has more than 1,600 charging life cycles and a battery capacity of 42800mAh. It should primarily be charged by other power sources (that's the fastest way to give it some juice), but it can also be powered by solar charging. It also comes with a bright flashlight that can work for 100 hours on a full charge, which is ideal to have during a power outage or to keep in your car for emergencies. ⭐ 4.2/5 stars 🛍️ 4,700 ratings 🏅Shoppers love that it's "rugged and powerful" and call it a "super handy device." $40 $300 at Amazon One reviewer shares that the power bank kept two cell phones charged for an entire weekend and "did not lose much power" after being used. Another who used it while on a trip notes that it charged their phones and hearing aids "for days" and still had a charge when they got home. Others rave that it's "rugged and powerful" and a "super handy device" that offers "great back-up power." Shoppers also say it brings "peace of mind" and is "quite spectacular." Some say that the power bank is "a bit bigger than expected" and a bit heavier, so that may be something to keep in mind, especially if you're tight on space or travelling. Shoppers rave that the Power Bank Solar Charger is rugged, powerful and does an excellent job of charging their devices over long periods of time. They also say that it offers peace of mind to know that they can charge their items when they are without power. Right now, the power bank is 87 per cent off, coming in at just $40. That means shoppers can save a whopping $260 on this massive deal.
Axios
04-03-2025
- Health
- Axios
Amazon palm-scanning technology comes to the hospital
New York University's Langone Health will use Amazon's palm recognition technology for patient check-ins, the health system announced Monday as a major health information technology conference kicked off. Why it matters: The new system, which will be optional for patients, aims to make it easier and faster to verify patient identities when they show up to an appointment. NYU Langone is the first health care setting to implement the Amazon One technology, which is already in use at stadiums, universities and Whole Foods locations. State of play: Starting next week, patients arriving at NYU Langone facilities can scan their palm to check in and verify their identity. The technology, which is integrated with NYU Langone's electronic health record system, will replace ID checks and other traditional identity verification methods, Amazon said in a news release. Zoom in: Amazon's palm-scanning technology won't collect health care records from providers, per the company's news release. The data collected from patients will be encrypted and patients can unenroll from Amazon One and request their data be deleted at any time, per the company. Our thought bubble: The new tech is cool, and it would be nice not to have to dig our ID out of our bag when we're already running late for an appointment. But it doesn't address the health data interoperability issues that make patients fill out a stack of forms each time they go to the doctor.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This 'rugged' Amazon portable charger is 'super handy' — it's a ridiculous 83% off right now
If you've ever been stuck with a dead device and no way to charge it, you know exactly how panic-inducing it can be. If you want to avoid that situation, having a portable charger on standby could be a real game-changer. This Power Bank Solar Charger is a favourite among Amazon Canada shoppers — in fact, more than 1,000 Amazon customers bought one this month. And right now, you can shop this popular power bank for a whopping 83 per cent off (seriously!) Interested? Keep scrolling for all the details and see why shoppers call it a "super handy device" that gives them "peace of mind." Shoppers say it's "rugged and powerful" and that it gives them "peace of mind" knowing they can charge their devices. This portable charger has three USB C ports, meaning you can charge multiple devices at once. It's heat-resistant, waterproof, dust-proof and drop-proof, so it's likely to be safe no matter your environment. The device has more than 1,600 charging life cycles and a battery capacity of 42800mAh. It should primarily be charged by other power sources (that's the fastest way to give it some juice), but it can also be powered by solar charging. It also comes with a bright flashlight that can work for 100 hours on a full charge, which is ideal to have during a power outage or to keep in your car for emergencies. ⭐ 4.3/5 stars 🛍️ 2,600+ ratings 🏅Shoppers love that it's "rugged and powerful" and call it a "super handy device." $50 $300 at Amazon One reviewer shares that the power bank kept two cell phones charged for an entire weekend and "did not lose much power" after being used. Another who used it while on a trip notes that it charged their phones and hearing aids "for days" and still had a charge when they got home. Others rave that it's "rugged and powerful," and a "super handy device" that offers "great back-up power." Shoppers also say it brings "peace of mind" and is "quite spectacular." Some say that the power bank is "a bit bigger than expected" and a bit heavier, so that may be something to keep in mind, especially if you're tight on space or travelling. Shoppers rave that the Power Bank Solar Charger is rugged, powerful and does an excellent job of charging their devices over long periods of time. They also say that it offers peace of mind to know that they can charge their items when they are without power. Right now, the power bank is 83 per cent off, coming in at just $50. That means shoppers can save a whopping $250 on this massive deal.
