Amazon recently announced a new digital payment system. This new system can be physically used in shops, by waving your hand above a payment device. You will not have to implement any type of chip or card inside your body, you just have to register your hand palm (BBC News, 2020). The payment device is able to read the vein patterns on your palm, which is impressive considering these are different for every finger and every individual. Amazon states that this method is more private than any other payment, because you can’t see a persons’ real identity on their palm, and it will consequently decrease fraud (Warren, 2020). They think that customers will appreciate the contactless nature of the system, especially in these COVID-times, in which nobody wants to touch public objects Also, the veins in your hand will remain the same your entire life so you would never have to change your ‘card’. The palm scanner can easily be implemented in one of the 20-plus Amazon Go stores, where you can scan your palm and link it to your bank account (Business Insider, 2020).
Obviously, there are many concerns about the implementation of this types of payment methods. For instance, privacy group Big Brother Watch had major issues with Amazon’s invention. Silkie Carlo, the director, state: ‘’Amazon continues to fill the market with invasive, dystopian technologies that solve non-existent problems.’’ (BBC News, 2020).
He also mentions that it is absolutely not necessary to give away your private, biometric data in order to buy food. In his eyes, Amazon wants to normalize infiltration in civilian’s homes and bodies to empower themselves.
Amazon already possesses an endless amount of data about everyone of its customers, and keeps this in their database forever (Kelion, n.d.). Especially with Alexa invading people’s homes the amount of information Amazon has about people is gigantic.
Amazon stated that the information is stored not in their usual database, but in a cloud separate from other customer data (Business Insider, 2020). However, ‘’somewhere in a cloud’’ does not sound all that safe to me. I would not be comfortable with the fact that a company is in possession of my very personal data. Especially when giving them my card or cash money is a very adequate method of paying.
What do you guys think? Do you think this could possibly be the future or will people in general be resistant against it?

BBC News. (2020, 29 September). Amazon One: Palm scanner launched for “secure” payments. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54337984
Business Insider (2020, 29 September). Amazon is letting customers pay for groceries by scanning their palm at its Go convenience stores. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-one-palm-scanner-payment-system-trialed-amazon-go-seattle-2020-9?international=true&r=US&IR=T
Kelion, L. (z.d.). Amazon: How Bezos built his data machine. BBC News. Read 1 oktober 2020, van https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/CLQYZENMBI/amazon-data
Warren, T. (2020, 29 september). Amazon One lets you pay with your palm. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/29/21493094/amazon-one-palm-recognition-hand- payments-amazon-go-store

WeChat is a multi-purpose app, owned by Tencent Holdings, with all imaginable apps that are available combined into one app. With its 1,2 billion users and endless possibilities, it is widely implemented into Chinese society. Like all Chinese social media platforms, it uses governmental censorship.
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and has over one billion users. It is evidenced to collect a huge amount of data on its users including which videos are watched and commented on, location data, phone model and operating system used (Tidy, 2020). This type of data, however, is also collected by Reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook. The difference with those social media platforms and Tiktok is that Tiktok is controlled by Chinese companies instead of American ones, which rises the possibility of personal data falling into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (Tidy, 2020). TikTok states they would reject requests concerning sharing data, but displeasing the Communist Party could have consequences for the entire company and its leadership and is therefore not likely to be the chosen strategy when such a request occurs.
The American government has recently declared the apps to be a severe threat to the national cyber security. The Trump administration thinks that WeChat en TikTok threaten national security and pass user data on to the Chinese government. Data collection by those Chinese apps allows the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal information (Deagon, 2020). Another large concern is censorship, which influences the content to be biased in favour of the Chinese state (Tidy, 2020).
The department of Commerce said it would ban TikTok and WeChat from any app store, making it impossible to download the apps (BBC news, 2020). After Trump announced the executive orders, the stocks of multiple Chinese companies fell, including Alibaba, Huya and Tencent (Deagon, 2020). This illustrates the recent tensions and insecurity between America and China, which are likely to increase now (Restuccia, 2020).
Trump has declared that WeChat was going to be banned, on the 20th of September. However, an independent US judge decided that this was not in accordance with the law (BBC News, 2020). She states that the ban is in opposition to the constitution’s first amendment; free speech. However, Trump is not giving up already and this will be continued…
The attack on WeChat is of larger interest for the Chinese government than the alleged TikTok ban. WeChat users are not only Chinese citizens, but also foreigners who have ties in China. Furthermore, WeChat’s mother-company Tencent has a history of cooperating with the Chinese government in multiple areas and boasts the national economy with nearly 700 billion dollars (Restuccia, 2020). Tiktok is not nearly as profitable and crucial as WeChat.
The president stated that the ongoing security issues need to be resolved by the twelfth of November, otherwise TikTok will await the same faith as WeChat. We will just have to wait and see. Now I’m curious, are you afraid of Chinese government interference in the Western world or do you think this is all exaggerated distrust of the Trump government? And how do you feel about social media apps gathering your personal data? Let me know in the comments!

References
– BBC News. (2020, 18 september). TikTok and WeChat: US to ban app downloads in 48 hours. (Online) Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology- 54205231?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c255806071xt/tiktok& link_location=live-reporting-story
– BBC News. (2020b, september 20). Judge blocks US attempts to ban China’s WeChat. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54223980
– Deagon, B. (2020). China Stocks Hit By Trump Executive Order Targeting TikTok, WeChat. Investors Business Daily.
– Restuccia, A. (2020, Aug 07). Trump executive orders target TikTok, WeChat apps; limitations on the chinese apps are likely to increase tensions with beijing. Wall Street Journal (Online) Retrieved from https://search-proquest- com.eur.idm.oclc.org/docview/2430801548?accountid=13598
– Tidy, B. J. (2020, 3 augustus). TikTok: What is the app and how much data does it collect? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53476117