By 2025, advances in biometrics will radically transform the driving experience: health, wellness and wellbeing of the driver and the security of vehicles.

This is the key finding of Frost & Sullivan’s ‘Biometrics in the Global Automotive Industry, 2016–2025’ analysis.

According to the study, one in three new passenger vehicles will feature one or more biometric features by 2025, such as fingerprint recognition, iris recognition, voice recognition, gesture recognition, heart beat monitoring, brain wave monitoring, stress detection, fatigue monitoring, eyelid monitoring, facial monitoring or pulse detection.

These will be driven by built-in, brought-in and cloud-enabled technologies.

Brought-in biometrics will play a key role in the future of in-car health, wellness and wellbeing monitoring. Built-in biometric technologies will primarily drive advanced driver-assistance systems and vehicle security, and cloud analytics will generate actionable insights and send notifications during emergencies.

Biometrics in vehicles is expected to show a compound annual growth rate of 38.3% up to 2025.

Brave New World
The Frost & Sullivan study finds that the cars of the future will use biometrics to authenticate an individual, as well as to identify individual behaviour patterns.

The data will, for example, be used to automatically adjust the car’s seat height, steering position and rear view mirror, as well as play favourite music and retrieve health records. Behaviour patterns of multiple users can be recorded.

Biometrics such as fingerprints, palm vein, facial recognition and heartbeat detection will be used for vehicle security.

These features will be used for secure vehicle entry and for ignition authentication, which will render the traditional car key obsolete by 2025 – which means that, if your children don’t know what a postage stamp is, it is likely theirs won’t know about the existence of car keys.

Major automotive original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs, or car manufacturers) and Tier 1 suppliers (major components suppliers) must keep abreast of technologies, business models and the regulations shaping the automotive biometrics ecosystem, advises the Frost & Sullivan study.

“Partnerships between automotive OEMs and wearables companies will result in faster penetration of biometrics within the automotive industry, allowing OEMs to save on biometrics-related research and development expenditure, while creating growth avenues for wearables companies,” says Frost & Sullivan Intelligent Mobility industry analyst Joe Praveen Vijayakumar.

New business models within the automotive industry, such as device-as-a-service and health-as-a-service, will also emerge.

“Urbanisation will continue to fuel the emphasis on biometrics-driven advanced driver assistance system features to navigate heavy traffic, while ensuring safety and comfort,” adds Vijayakumar.

“However, customer concerns surrounding the safety of the sensitive data collected through biometrics will compel suppliers to also invest in cybersecurity measures to build credibility and increase growth.”

The Frost & Sullivan study finds that OEMs and suppliers are investing in advanced biometrics through vertical integration and funding relevant start-ups to build a stronger product portfolio.