Hacker News Reader

Comment by CodeWriter23 | Hacker News Reader

My wife and I tried to get into our local Amazon Fresh. Sign outside said open Amazon app and scan upon entry. We were ok with that idea.

Got to the turnstiles, and the devices there demanded a palm print, no apparent scanners to scan a phone anywhere. We walked out and will never walk back in, especially considering the jackass carting out in the parking lot ridiculed us for refusing to surrender biometric data to give Amazon our money.

View on HN

No, you misunderstood the interface. While they certainly encourage you to use the weird biometric scanner it's in no way required. However you do have to have the Amazon app installed on your phone. When you open the app there's an option to reveal a QR code which you scan at the turnstiles.

Sounds like Amazon deliberately made a confusing interface to trick people into revealing more biometric data than necessary. I wouldn't say that's any better than just making it a requirement.

I did not. Had the app open, and QR code on my screen as I had previously done so many times before at Whole Foods. There was literally no device resembling a barcode scanner on the turnstile.

PS I also have a ton of experience with barcode printing and reading. As a matter of fact, software I have written has printed over 30M unique QR Codes for track and trace purposes.

The QR scanner should be on the turnstile itself.

It’s that little white thing next to the palm reader. It even has an Amazon app icon.

https://www-ocregister-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/www.ocregi...

Thanks for posting the photo. To my recollection there was only the palm scanner, no white box to the right of the palm scanner at this store. Maybe they were running an A/B test. I went back outside to read the instructions on the signs and they did not align with the reality inside.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com