Entering the office could soon be as easy as scanning your palm, thanks to a new release from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
At its AWS re:Invent 2023 event, the cloud computing giant unveiled an enterprise-focused version of its Amazon One palm-scanning biometric authentication tool that it says gives companies a much more secure way to ensure only their employees have access to office space and other facilities
In addition to saving money previously spent on printing fobs or keycards, AWS says Amazon One Enterprise will also protect valuable data, keeping it safe from potentially devastating data thefts and leaks.
Amazon One Enterprise
Amazon One first launched in September 2020 and became known for its use in the company’s Amazon Go supermarkets, best known for their ‘just walk away’ policy, where purchases are linked to the customer’s personal account.
Given the number of costly data breaches that companies of all sizes experience every day, AWS now says that Amazon One Enterprise could be the perfect solution to eliminate unwanted access to buildings and online services.
The company says traditional security processes, such as using key fobs or badges, are outdated because they can be lost, shared, cloned or stolen, while PINs and passwords are easily forgotten, guessed or shared.
AWS adds that many existing biometric authentication platforms, such as iris scanning and fingerprint recognition, are not always accurate. Instead, Amazon One Enterprise combines palm and vein images for biometric matching, using artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a palm signature that is linked to an employee’s existing credentials, such as a badge, employee ID or PIN code.
The company says this process can deliver an accuracy of 99.9999%, making it more accurate than any other biometric alternative, including scanning two irises, and cannot be replicated or used for impersonation.
Registration can apparently be completed in less than a minute, with each user’s palm data also encrypted with a unique key, which can be deleted by themselves or an administrator when leaving the company.
Amazon One Enterprise is now available in preview in the US and will come to other markets later in 2024.