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Welcome to One Minute Tech. Today: Why does Amazon want to scan your palm at the doctor’s office?
Amazon One, the palm-recognition service you might’ve seen at Whole Foods or your local stadium, is heading for healthcare. Instead of swiping an insurance card or logging in on a touchscreen, patients could simply hover their hand over a scanner. Amazon says it “creates a palm signature—a set of points, lines and measurements, hashed into a mathematical representation.” No images are stored, they promise, and your data is encrypted.
Yet health data is protected by HIPAA regulations—unless you give Amazon explicit permission. That means your “palm print” could end up linked to your medical records, prescriptions, even your mental-health history. As Vox warns, what feels like a slick convenience could become a Trojan horse for deeper data collection.
Before you opt in, ask: Do you trust Amazon to guard your most personal information? Convenience is tempting, but at what cost to your privacy? That’s One Minute Tech—see you next time!
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