Amazon bringing age verification for alcohol purchases to Amazon One palm recognition technology

A new capability of Amazon’s palm recognition technology will make it so that users can prove they’re above the legal drinking age without showing a physical ID for a boozy purchase.

The e-commerce giant unveiled the feature – age verification – for Amazon One on Monday, saying participating individuals who are at least 21-years-old can make alcohol purchases “by simply hovering their palms” over one of the service’s devices while using it. The feature involves the user’s government ID being linked to their palm signature, according to Amazon’s blog post on it.

When a person has elected to use age verification and holds their hand above an Amazon One device, the system informs the salesperson about whether the person trying to buy alcohol is “21+,” Amazon said. The blog post said it also surfaces a previously supplied selfie for matching purposes.

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That selfie comes from the sign-up for age verification, which requires users to upload one, according to Amazon. They must also provide photo documentation of the front and back of their ID.

Amazon said the IDs are not stored by the payment service.

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“When customers upload their government-issued ID to one.amazon.com, the images are securely transmitted to an ISO 27001-certified identity verification provider [ISO 27001 is an international standard for information security],” the company said on the page. “In seconds, the third-party service verifies the ID, cross references the selfie, and updates the Amazon One account to be age verified.”

The feature’s debut took place at baseball stadium Coors Field in Denver, according to Amazon.

It said Amazon One age verification “will be rolled out to additional establishments in the coming months” beyond Coors Field. Places where people can use Amazon One to pay for things include some Whole Foods Markets, Amazon Go stores, Amazon Fresh locations and certain others, according to the blog post. 

The Amazon One service is more than two years old.

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