A new report from the Wall Stree Journal has uncovered that Amazon, the corporate behemoth that arguably seems to dwarf the influence that Standard Oil had at the height of its power, is working in integrating biometric data as well as payment processing into her corporate model, essentially turning the company into a data warehouse for personal biological data as well as financial information and potentially her own bank.
Amazon.com Inc. wants to make your hand your credit card.
The tech giant is creating checkout terminals that could be placed in bricks-and-mortar stores and allow shoppers to link their card information to their hands, according to people familiar with the matter. They could then pay for purchases with their palms, without having to pull out a card or phone.
The company plans to pitch the terminals to coffee shops, fast-food restaurants and other merchants that do lots of repeat business with their customers, according to some of the people. Amazon declined to comment.
Amazon, like other tech companies, is trying to further integrate itself into consumers’ financial lives, leaving banks and card networks on edge. Apple Inc. introduced a credit card last year, and Google is rolling out checking accounts. If the Amazon terminals succeed, they could leapfrog mobile wallets such as Apple Pay while expanding Amazon’s already-extensive access to consumer data.
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Amazon recently filed a patent application for what it described as a “non-contact biometric identification system” that includes “a hand scanner that generates images of a user’s palm.” (source)
There has been a tremendous move towards using ‘biometric’ identification for one’s ID. This is a horrendous thing and needs to be rejected out of simple logic, which is the safety of one’s data that in spite of what any corporation says, is inevitably at risk of being stolen and abused.
Anybody who believes that one’s personal data is safe is not living in reality. All of the time there are stories about databases being hacked and personal data getting out of all types, even in the most ‘secure’ databases.
No system is foolproof. However, there is a major difference if one’s credit card is stolen versus one’s handprint beacuse one can change the number on a credit card- one cannot change one’s handprint, face print, or finger print.
Using these systems is not ‘safer’, but far more dangerous because in the event of theft- which will happen at some point -there will be data that will be stolen and cannot be fixed. You cannot undo your face print, hand print, or finger prints, and so they will be permanently compromised.
What if Amazon were to get her way, and then be compromised by a “hack”? With the talk of integrating all of one’s personal accounts into this “biometric” system, one’s life savings could be easily destroyed or stolen immediately with no recourse. Does one actually believe that the government would prosecute a major corporation such as Amazon if people’s lives were truly affected? She does not already, and there is no reason to believe she would do this in the future.
The separation of financial assets as well as the use of replaceable keys, while some will claim is ‘insecure’, is a major facet of security because over-integration and ‘keys’ that cannot be easily replaced are a sure recipe for creating a disaster. In the financial world, people are always advised to ‘diversify’ their assets so that in a time of trouble, one does not risk losing all that one had. This is the origin of the saying ‘don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.’
The push for this is clearly being done not to make people’s lives better, but for power and control. This ironically comes at a time when ‘decentralization’ is being pushed, which if one looks closer, is actually centralization but by a different name, since computers all can access and share the same information, but as independent units, thus not creating separate databases, but a bunch of separate bases all connected to each other that turns into a massive ‘hive-mind’ like a swarm of bugs.
The vision of the future that people have is not, like science fiction, going to be one of traveling to the stars, but is going to be one of systematic control by ever-oppressive governments who want to monitor man’s every move, literally down to the steps that he takes, in the name of “safety” and “security”. Amazon’s actions are just a part of this.
So how is one to handle this?
As much as possible, the way to handle it is to do two things initially. First, it is to be open about one’s flaws and to not ‘keep secrets’ in so far as they could be used against a person. Blackmail, or the threat of blackmail, is always an issue, and if there are ‘no secrets’, or very few, then they cannot be used against a man. This is the power of sin, because it creates a claim of ownership on a person. To expose it gives the chance to heal it, and to prevent it from becoming a source of trouble.
The part is to simply refuse to use systems, and to use them at one’s leisure. It will likely mean a simplification of one’s personal life, and this requires sacrifice. But to choose consciously what to use or what not to use is a major step, even if things are forced, to breaking up the quick push to monopolize and control what one has.
There are some stores that do not take cash any more. What does this say for the future?
Many warn about the coming ‘one world government’ where none can sell without taking a ‘mark of the beast’.
One can only wonder, given these technologies, the very rapid speed at which they advance, and the possibility for abuse in the future, what such things will look like.