The Emerging Importance of Biometric Vehicle Access

Customers look for both performance and convenience when it comes to the vehicles they buy. Many modern vehicles now offer users the convenience keyless entry systems while others offer remote start facility. Gone are the days when you needed to physically start the car with the key you had in your hand. Eventually it is expected that you will not even need a keyfob for starting the car. Just like you can now swipe cards for banking transactions, it might eventually be possible to gain access to your vehicles and start them through fingerprint readers or retina scanners. It might sound like science fiction but we have come a long way from the days when a computer took up a whole room and a mobile phone was a bulky device that only the very rich could own. Similarly, in a few short years, biometric access to vehicles is likely to become a reality.

According to a report in Markets and Markets in terms of value, the vehicle security system market is dominated by remote keyless entry systems. Over 70% of vehicles that come off the production line today offer a remote keyless entry system, either as a standard or an optional feature. It has however considerably contributed to the risk of having vehicles stolen as keyless car systems can be easily hacked. This is one of the reasons why biometric vehicle access systems will become increasingly popular. As of now, criminals are yet to come up with ways to replicate fingerprints or patterns of the retina. Manual keys can be easily stolen or replicated. In the case of keyless car systems, a technologically savvy hacker who can copy the signal emitted by the key to start the car can easily gain access to the vehicle. Even insurance companies have begun to refuse to give coverage to those drivers who don’t park their car in secure locations like underground parking lots.

Hence, customers are increasingly looking for more secure methods to prevent issues like these. According to a report in Business Wire, the global automotive biometric vehicle access system market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 19.55% during the period 2016-2020. By the end of this decade, these devices will be able to recognize their drivers on the basis of speech patterns, fingerprint and iris. Biometric technologies will, in addition to vehicle access and anti-theft systems utilities, also cover ignition permissions, and on-board communication programs.

The Asia Pacific market is responsible for the largest production of automobiles and hence is expected to account for the largest share of the global vehicle security system market. The other regions in which the vehicle security system market is expected to exhibit high growth are North America and Europe. The key players in this segment are Continental AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, Lear Corporation, Delphi Automotive, and Valeo SA and many other companies at the local level.