B-Secur HeartKey tech unlocks your car with unique rhythm of your heartbeat
B-Secur imagines a future where its EKG-based HeartKey technology enhances security for cars and devices while monitoring driver health.
- North American Car, Truck and SUV of the Year (NACTOY) Awards Juror
If you love your car as much as I love mine, turning the key and starting the engine gets your heart racing. At CES 2019, B-Secur imagines a future where its HeartKey technology inverts that relationship, unlocking and starting your car with the unique beat of your heart.
From fingerprint readers to iris scanners to Face ID, using biometrics to enhance security is becoming increasingly more common with mobile technology and computers. B-Secur's technology is built on the supposition that our individual electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) patterns -- the rhythm of our heartbeats -- are as unique as our fingerprints or iris patterns. Using algorithms to monitor and identify this pattern, that unique rhythm can be used to authenticate that you are, in fact, you.
Adding EKG-monitoring biometric algorithms to smart cars and wearables could eventually replace the old-fashioned car key.
And as cars rapidly become big ol' mobile devices, it makes sense that one day biometrics -- including B-Secur's EKG tech -- could become an alternative to the key fob as the way we access and start our cars.
A future HeartKey-enabled car could have EKG sensors in B-Secur's Advanced Auto Steering Wheel that detect the unique heartbeat of the driver. If the rhythm is right, the car will start. As they drive along, the system can also detect the driver's stress levels, alertness and cardiac conditions to improve safety.
"HeartKey's algorithms offer greater security that protects not only our devices and vehicles, but more importantly, our physical health and safety," said Alan Foreman, CEO of B-Secur.
"One of the most flexible and convenient authentication methods available, HeartKey technology also allows users to unlock deep, data-driven insights into their own health and wellness."
Constant monitoring of EKG information allows HeartKey to gain insights into driver alertness and heart health while the driver rolls along.
B-Secur claims that the algorithm's dynamic confirmation of the "vitality and presence of the user" and continuous passive authentication make it much more difficult to counterfeit a heart rate pattern. Of course, there are also potential health benefits to having your car constantly monitoring and gaining insight into the beating of a heart while you inch through traffic. HeartKey could constantly assess the muscular and electrical state of the heart in real-world, real-time settings and can detect potentially dangerous cardiac changes earlier on, as the Apple Watch's ECG app did for CNET's Vanessa Hand Orellana.
At CES, B-Secur announced partnerships with semiconductor players Analog Devices, Cypress Semiconductor and NXP Semiconductors to embed HeartKey EKG authentication and wellness technology into next-generation connected devices and vehicles.
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