Bioprivacy: Designing for a Moving Target

Automotive design standards and specifications can be moving targets. In the autonomous realm, the present lack of formal rulemaking and applicable new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, coupled with emerging industry standards, requires a designer to remain nimble. Building on these technologies to incorporate biometrics into vehicles, yet another moving target emerges: bioprivacy rights.

Autonomous vehicles will expand harvesting of biometric data

Biometric data generally refers to any medical or physiological data relating to a person. A biometric “identifier” offers the ability to trace unique physiological data to a specific individual and includes fingerprints, facial or retinal scans and genetic profiles. Biometric identifiers are lucrative targets for the automotive industry: Goode Intelligence projects the market for automotive-related biometric content may reach a value of $969 million by 2023.

As designers of driverless vehicles focus on the user experience (UX), the following applications become the data collectors for biometric identifiers:

• Eyes on the road—a disengagement solution system: A potential solution to determine the driver’s
  ability to return to control after autonomous operation.
• Personalization and safety: Driver-identification technology can use facial and iris scans, as well as voice and fingerprint tracking.
• A healthy and entertaining UX: A touch of a holographic button or the shift of an eye could allow a user to access a personal cloud-based movie or music playlist.

Click here to read the complete article in Autonomous Vehicle Engineering.