A Whole Foods shopper magically paid for groceries using nothing but just her palm, leaving throngs of commenters stunned as to how the Jedi Force-looking motion resulted in a payment verification.
Lauren Saponara (@laurasaponara) posted the viral clip online, and while there were a lot of users who seemed just as stunned as she was by the payment feature, there were others who knew about the biometric scanning authorization who expressed that she was gassing up her reaction for views online.
Saponara begins her video at a Whole Foods self-checkout machine. She’s got a bag of cherries placed on the device and begins panning her camera around to show that there are several contraptions rigged up for payment options, including one small additional scanner that isn’t meant to read item barcodes, but rather, customers’ palms.
The TikToker narrates in her clip: “OK I’m trying to buy these cherries at Whole Foods, and I can pay with my palm,” she says, directing camera at the palm scanner, which shows a brief animation detailing how the process works: A cartoon hand is shown on the device’s small screen showcasing a process that looks kind of like magic. Users hover their hand over the scanner which allows them to process the sale of their groceries. There’s no need to use a card or one’s phone with NFC enabled… just.. a hand.
She decides to try and use the palm-waving option: “Is it gonna work?” she asks, holding her hand over the scanner, which suspends its animation to show a black screen with a white dot centered in the middle of it. Within seconds, the black screen transitions to a blue blue one—and the white circle disappears, indicating that the transaction is complete. Saponara audibly gasps, “No way,” she says, seemingly in disbelief that the palm-waving payment option worked. “No way… what the heck? That’s crazy,” she said before laughing at the end of the clip.
“technology is crazy and scaryyy,” she adds in a caption, and there were several users who were equally disturbed by the payment option.
“with what card? what money???” one wrote.
Another said, “i’m scared & confused”
Someone else wrote: “that is scaryyy”
“paying with your soul,” one remarked.
However, there were others who responded to her video who stated that they couldn’t understand why she was acting so surprised, as this was a service Whole Foods customers must opt into.
“i work at wholefoods and you have to set it up fully for it to work ‘what the heck!’ like you didn’t do it willingly,” one person explained.
“You have to pre-enroll online then set it up on the palm reader at WF ahead of time,” another commenter on the app said in response to Saponara’s clip.
While Saponara acknowledged that she certainly signed up for the option to pay in this manner, she was still shocked regardless: “yes but this was the first time i ever tried it lol.. am i not allowed to be surprised??” she wrote in response to one commenter.
Is biometric pay at Whole Foods a thing?
News of the palm payment program was released in a statement from About Amazon back in July of 2023 which published a piece detailing that the hand-scanning tech is actually Amazon One’s tech: “As Amazon One—Amazon Web Services’s palm recognition service for identification, payment, loyalty membership, and entry at over 400 locations across the U.S.—reaches a critical milestone with more than 3 million uses, Whole Foods Market stores are going all in.”
Folks who are interested in trying it out can go here, and Amazon’s website describes the feature as “A fast, FREE identity service that allows you to enter, identify, and pay using only your palm.” According to a tutorial video on the clip, all customers need is “a credit card, a phone number, and [their] palm” and they’re good to go.
The use of biometrics to access technology isn’t necessarily new phenomenon: A wide variety of mobile devices and computers have implemented things like fingerprint scanners that help users gain access to their devices and applications. Even apps within mobile operating systems, like mobile banking solutions, prompt other biometric inputs, along with app stores and prompts for changes of specific security features on a device will ask users to re-input their password or biometric credentials.
Security concerns over biometric scanning/payment systems have been raised previously—CNBC penned a piece on Amazon’s palm paying feature, which featured a statement from a tech expert who speculated how artificial intelligence could possibly be used to dupe biometric scanning systems into stealing people’s identities, which would allow bad actors the ability to use other people’s funds in order to purchase whatever they would like — “Since your hand or face is completely unique to you and can’t go missing in the way your credit or debit card can, some may argue that it is a more secure form of payment. But that’s not necessarily so, says Hafiz Malik, an electrical- and computer-engineering professor at the University of Michigan who researches cybersecurity. Artificial intelligence technology could be used to create fake versions of your voice, face or handprint, which could then be used to dupe biometric-based payment systems…”
Malik went on to say: “There needs to be countermeasures, such as liveness detection, in place to detect whether these are spoofed or impersonated identities”
@laurasaponara technology is crazy and scaryyy
♬ original sound – Laura Saponara
CNBC went on to write that Amazon does incorporate a featured called “liveness-detection” which can tell whether or not a palm belongs to a living hand as opposed to a fake one: “This capability allows Amazon One to recognize the difference between a real live palm and a replica. We even tested Amazon One with more than 1,000 silicone and 3D printed palms, and Amazon One rejected those attempts,” the tech and retail giant said of its security protocol.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Saponara and Amazon via email for further comment.
