Panera Bread rolls out palm-scanning engineering

Panera Bread is rolling out palm scanners that will url customers’ handprints to their loyalty accounts — a transfer the firm paints as handy but that privacy advocates have decried.

The biometric-collecting technology, formulated by Amazon, will hit suppliers in the next couple months, Panera stated on Wednesday. The devices will assist advise menu merchandise based mostly on customers’ buy histories and allow employees to greet consumers by their names and share customers’ out there rewards, the business reported.

Panera Bread CEO Niren Chaudhary described the shift as a “frictionless, individualized, and effortless” evolution of Panera’s loyalty plan, which offers 52 million associates. 

The fast-informal chain has presently mounted the scanners at destinations in St. Louis, in which it is headquartered, and states the scanners will “develop to additional destinations in the coming months,” while it is unclear how quite a few of the chain’s 2,000-furthermore spots will be impacted. Reuters reported that Amazon Just one technological know-how is in use at some 200 areas throughout the country, such as Amazon’s Entire Foodstuff Industry subsidiary and Amazon Go merchants.

Panera suggests the technological innovation will securely keep its customers’ biometric knowledge. On the other hand, digital rights activists fear that info could be tapped by federal agencies or accessed by hackers. 

“Federal businesses like Customs and Border Defense have expert devastating hacks the place large databases of biometric information have been stolen,” Fight for the Future explained to CBS MoneyWatch in an electronic mail. “Do we really hope Amazon, or Panera, to have improved cybersecurity techniques?”

Panera and Amazon did not promptly reply to requests for comment. 

Amazon started working with biometric-accumulating technologies at its Amazon Go places in late 2020, but the payments process has elevated some eyebrows and alarms. In 2021, a team of U.S. senators sent a letter to Amazon’s CEO requesting specifics about how the enterprise intends to use customers’ facts and whether or not it will keep on to develop up its biometric data. 

Amazon’s monitoring techniques are also at the crux of a lawsuit submitted previously this thirty day period. The suit alleges the e-commerce large skirted New York Metropolis details privacy guidelines by not disclosing to consumers that it was accumulating their biometric info.