In-car voice biometric technology may have found its “ah ha!” moment.
The auto industry has been struggling for years to deliver connected features and technologies that delight their customers, only to fall victim to complexity, lack of intuitiveness and consumer worries over the handling of sensitive personal information. Personalization of the driving experience is of great importance to prospective customers, who have also voiced their heightened concerns over privacy and data security.
A technology solution could be voice biometrics. More than ever, automakers need to incorporate features and technologies into their products while providing an easily customized in-car experience as well as the privacy and security that is increasingly demanded by consumers. Voice biometrics can deliver on these requirements – and more.
Beyond advanced voice command and control, biometrics makes possible an entirely new level of personalization. By recognizing the identity of the user, a wide array of personalized in-vehicle preferences can be enabled and presented to the user at a time and manner the user chooses. Implemented properly, the car becomes a “digital assistant,” uniquely serving multiple people and catering to their specific needs. As car sharing becomes a credible model of future mobility, biometrics can allow for multiple usage of vehicles while maintaining advanced, individualized personalization of the driving experience.
Data privacy and security are better guaranteed through the robust user authentication made possible by biometrics, and voice-controlled operation makes this task easy and accurate. Multi-factor authentication (requiring two or more independent credentials to securely establish user identity), employed in a vehicle, allows the user to control where and under what specific conditions data is being shared. This is a practical way of maintaining a high degree of data security and privacy while driving; sensitive information can now be transacted to enable subscribed services, payment systems and other identity-related functions. Are voice-controlled keyless entry and ignition in our near future?
We have also observed that biometrics-enabled second factor authentication can also reduce driver distraction. Manually entering PIN numbers in a moving vehicle makes no sense in today’s technological environment, yet connected drivers do this every day as they continually wake up their smartphones to check messages (at stoplights only, right?).
Automakers such as Honda have made great progress in combining technologies that people might actually use to reduce distraction while they stay connected and productive while driving. Bringing voice biometrics technology to market could help to mitigate distraction while opening up new possibilities for automakers to add the connected features consumers demand and allow those consumers to operate those features easily, safely and securely.
Source: Automotive: Now it’s personal – Nuance