More Cars Will Implement Biometric Safety Features in 2019: Fact.MR

A new report suggests that automotive biometrics providers are about to enjoy a lucrative year. Fact.MR valued the market for biometric driver identification systems at $10 billion in 2018, and expects that figure to skyrocket with 25 percent year-over-year growth in 2019.

According to the report, much of the projected growth will come from North America, which is the largest market for biometric driver identification systems. Sales are expected to top $1 billion, much of which will come from the sale of luxury cars that pitch biometric tech as a safety feature for people with high purchasing power.

Those safety features include facial recognition tech that monitors driver drowsiness and fatigue. The Subaru Forester was recently named as one of the best family cars thanks in part to its use of Driver Assist technology, and Fact.MR believes that the growing popularity of similar systems will fuel more than $3 billion in sales in the coming year.

Of course, Subaru is not the only company to explore the potential automotive applications of facial recognition technology. Facial recognition and gaze tracking from Visteon and Tencent will allow drivers to interact with their cars, while Apple has patented tech that would use facial recognition as a way to unlock the vehicle and set driver preferences, to note just a couple of examples.

Fact.MR also expects self-driving cars to generate additional interest in biometric monitoring systems.