Amazon One: Western social credit in the palm of your hand

DR – Amazon One Screenshot of the Amazon One website.

Exit smartphones and smartwatches, Amazon has struck again. In the United States, Americans who want to can now pay with the palm of their hand, opening their arms to the collection of ever more personal data, and therefore, potentially, to social credit. In France, some are already rushing to develop similar technology.

In the West as everywhere else, technological advances are rapidly redefining the way we make payments and manage our personal data. These innovations, while offering unprecedented convenience, are raising growing concerns about privacy and the possibility of mass surveillance, which already hangs over us like the sword of Damocles.

Amazon One, the heart on the sleeve

Across the Atlantic, the giant Amazon has introduced palm recognition payment with its Amazon One system. As indicated on the company's official website, all you have to do is register the palm of your hand on the dedicated application (in 3D) to create a sort of unique biometric signature, then associate it with your Amazon account before going to the equipped stores and paying by simply holding your hand over the machine. There is obviously no need to worry, since “your palm is made up of several layers of distinctive features that make it the safest, easiest and most convenient choice”. Moreover, in case you haven't noticed, it is also “a part of you that only you can control”. What could be better, then, than to put everything in the palm of your hand ?

The question was asked in France, and without further ado, the company Ingenico volunteered to lead the way. On X (Twitter), some Internet users are already worried after seeing the presentation by Michel Léger (CTO of Ingenico), filmed by Le Parisien:

Humans are in the process of accepting social credit and its creation of sub-citizens, but they don't know yet. pic.twitter.com/8KLGxQtbRg

— Alexis Haupt Philosophie (@AlexisPhilo) July 29, 2024

You enter your phone number, your credit card information, and place your palm against the machine so that it can read the lines on your hand. Proud of his project, Michel Léger wants to be reassuring: “If we take a photo of your hand, it won't work,” especially because the image doesn't reflect “your hemoglobin level.” Oh! Because Ingenico's technology does. So much so that “even if we cut off your hand and present it, it won't work either.” Phew!

Unsurprisingly, like Amazon, the French company is overdoing it with the so-called protection of collected data. “Completely secure and in compliance with all of today's rules regarding the processing of personal data,” assures Michel Léger.

A Western-style social credit?

Not all regulations are the same around the world, but that doesn’t stop Western companies from collecting and analyzing massive amounts of personal data to improve services and target ads, among other things. Every transaction, every online interaction, and even users’ physical movements are scrutinized and stored. This constant flow of data feeds sophisticated algorithms capable of predicting consumer behavior and influencing their decisions. It’s also the fastest path to identifying people, and therefore monitoring their actions, as we can gradually taste with government digital services such as FranceConnect.

A whole host of possibilities that bring us inexorably closer to the social credit system already existing in China, where the government uses mass surveillance and personal data to assess citizens’ behavior. This system assigns scores based on adherence to laws and social norms, impacting access to loans, jobs, and even travel.

In the West, while the motivations and structures are different, some of the dynamics are very similar. Credit scoring systems, for example, which have been in place for decades, are now being supplemented by assessments based on online and offline behavior: insurance companies use health data collected via wearables to adjust premiums; banks only want you to be healthy and stable; QR codes are used for health passes and game passes; employers can scan social media to assess candidates… The line between technological convenience and intrusion into privacy is becoming blurred, to say the least.

Capital interviewed Cécile Vernudachi on the subject, a lawyer specializing in digital law and personal data at the firm Anders Avocats. Despite the European laws that are in force, she warns: “It is sometimes complicated to have transparency on the use that can be made of this data by actors outside the European Union. Any collection of this biometric data still raises the question of mass surveillance, or the creation of a gigantic database on the European population that could be used for various purposes (espionage, disinformation, destabilization, etc.). »

Once again, we have been warned.

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