In Harry Potter, the wand chooses the wizard. In the future, the car might choose the driver.
Researchers at Deutsche Telekom are making cars that know exactly what you look like, can read your vitals and will even sense your neurological activity, Futurism reports. The car will ideally use a camera to recognize its driver and go pick it up.
And it’s not just a select few creeps trying to get cars to potentially see through your clothes—a recent report predicts a third of new cars in 2025 will use this biometrics to make decisions by reading your body.
Take the German automaker Continental: engineers unveiled their Biometric Access System at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Showcase earlier this year. Instead of keys, the system uses fingerprint sensors to start the engine, and adjusts the car’s settings based on its facial recognition software, according to Futurism:
At the same event, electronics company Gentex revealed their biometric system. This iris-scanning technology can be incorporated into a vehicle’s rear-view mirror and is 99.9 percent accurate at confirming a driver’s identity. If the person in the car isn’t recognized, the system can text the car’s owner or limit functionality. If the driver is recognized, everything from the seat to the radio can be adjusted automatically to suit their preferences.
Hopefully this tech doesn’t go too far. We all know what happens when machines get a little too close and personal with their owners...
We grow mustaches.