Data security: in the palm of our hands

YARMOUTH, Maine – At the end of November Amazon made waves in the security, hospitality, and retail industries with the preview release of its Amazon One Enterprise services.

It’s no secret that industries are flocking to biometrics as a solution to solve security problems. In July 2023, Security Systems News (SSN) learned from readers in our monthly poll that 42.86% of respondents were leveraging biometrics in their businesses and organizations. More than that, 71.43% favored using biometrics for security applications like access control and asset protection.

Now, this latest product from Amazon Web Services (AWS) seeks to fill that need with its contactless proprietary scanner that combines palm and vein imagery biometric matching that AWS said delivers an accuracy rate of 99.9999%. With some tech experts urging caution with this technology, SSN reached out to Amazon to discuss more about its security capabilities, and how it secures its biometric data.

“Palm data and badge ID information are never stored on the device,” an Amazon spokesperson told SSN. “They are immediately encrypted and sent to a highly secure zone in the AWS Cloud custom-built for Amazon One Enterprise, where a unique collection of palm signatures is created for each enterprise customer, thereby providing strong data isolation and increased security for each organization.”

In its release AWS stated that its palm-recognition technology uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create a palm signature that is associated with identification credentials which is a unique numerical vector created from the user’s palm image that cannot be replicated or used for impersonation.

AWS further clarified that the data was kept private from third parties like governments and law enforcement agencies. “Amazon One Enterprise does not share a user’s palm data with government agencies. Amazon One Enterprise will never share palm data with third parties, under any circumstance, including in response to government demands, unless we're required to comply with a legally valid and binding order. Additionally, Amazon One Enterprise is not interoperable with data provided by other sources. This is because Amazon One Enterprise uses a proprietary combination of palm and vein imagery to recognize customers, making it unusable to third parties and unmatchable with data from other sources,” the company said.

Additionally, AWS noted that Amazon One Enterprise complies with all U.S. biometric laws.

In its original press release Amazon quoted a number of industry notables that would be making use of Amazon One Enterprise’s services, and that included revolving door and entry solution provider Boon Edam. SSN asked Boon Edam Americas President Patrick Nora how Amazon One Enterprise compares to traditional identity services and what the implementation of the technology means for the access control landscape.

“Amazon One Enterprise is an innovative biometric solution that provides organizations with a highly accurate form of personal identification and authentication beyond the capabilities of traditional access credentials, which can easily be replicated, lost or stolen,” Nora said. “Boon Edam is working closely with leading technology partners to deliver integrated secured entry solutions that provide organizations across all verticals with enhanced levels of security, safety and business intelligence.”

The European Union (EU) entered its third day of negotiations on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, on rules governing the use of AI in military and security applications, but also biometric surveillance. Several governments were attempting to persuade lawmakers to avoid an outright ban over privacy concerns.

Amazon One Enterprise is available for preview in the U.S. For more information, please visit aws.amazon.com.