Amazon, alongside Apple, has been one of the major companies developing new technology to allow for making purchases without cash or a physical credit card. They are expanding to its biggest area yet: the company is now testing its palm-scanning payment technology in Whole Foods, starting with a single store in Amazon’s home city of Seattle. The company has been using Amazon One payment technology in its Amazon-branded stores in the Seattle area (including Amazon Go and Amazon Books), but the Whole Foods rollout will make the most substantial expansion of the technology yet. The company says that thousands of customers have already signed up with Amazon One.

Amazon’s palm reading starts at the grocery store, but it could be so much bigger. According to an Amazon FAQ, the palm-scanning technology analyzes “the minute characteristics of your palm — both surface-area details like lines and ridges as well as subcutaneous features such as vein patterns” in order to identify a customer. This would allow them to use the biometric scan as an alternative method of checking out instead of credit card or cash. It is essentially using a “palm print” instead of a fingerprint to make purchases.

Customers will be able to register their palms at kiosks in the supported Whole Foods stores, allowing them to associate a physical credit card to that palm scan. After that point, the palm scan will serve as the physical card when checking out at the store. Amazon One will debut at the Madison Broadway Whole Foods in Seattle as an additional payment option for customers, with plans to expand it to seven other Whole Foods stores in the Seattle area over the next few months. Amazon hasn’t announced plans to further build out the palm-scanning payment system outside of the Seattle area.

All of this, of course, assumes that people are okay with Amazon building an ever-larger database of biometric information linked to its customers, something that some experts have raised concerns about. That’s particularly true given that Amazon’s data — unlike other biometric security systems, like Apple’s Face ID — is stored in on the cloud, rather than secured locally on a specific device.

While this technology itself is not necessarily a bad thing, it is easy to see the trajectory the economy is moving toward. More and more companies are pushing for a “cashless” society. Credit and debit cards have already replaced cash for many. This new technology could lead to an even further delve into this movement. It seems if the trajectory continues, it will not be long before currency becomes a thing of the past.

Why does this impact prophecy? Revelation describes a global economy and the mark of the beast, which will be used to control the global economy. People will not be able to “buy or sell” unless they take the mark of the beast. While this technology itself is not the mark of the beast, it does show that the technology and mindset is moving in that direction. This technology is especially notable because it specifically marks your purchase based on your unique identity.

If this kind of technology expands, it would be easy for the Antichrist to control a global economy. He could flip a switch and make it to where only those who are identified in a database as having taken the mark of the beast could make purchases. For centuries people have questioned how the Antichrist could deny those that refuse to be marked the ability to purchase goods. Perhaps we are seeing the technology that will lead to this ability.

PRAY: Pray for emerging technology and its role in prophecy and the End Times.

PHOTO: Amazon