---
title: "Ford Wants to Add Biometric Sensors to Its Cars"
description: "Move over Minority Report—Ford CEO Mark Field's got some ideas."
date: "2017-05-05"
modified: "2017-05-05"
authors:
  - name: "Kyle Cheromcha"
    job_title: "Editor-in-Chief"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/kyle-cheromcha"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/tech/9973/ford-wants-to-add-biometric-sensors-to-its-cars"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "autonomous"
  - "biometric"
  - "Flex"
  - "Ford"
  - "safety"
  - "scan"
  - "sensors"
  - "tracking"
---

# Ford Wants to Add Biometric Sensors to Its Cars

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/2017/05/gettyimages-631398076.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

For a lot of people, the first sign of the arrival of a mythical "future," where the incremental changes taking place around us every day finally add up to flying cars and interstellar travel, will be the widespread introduction of biometric sensors that replace everything from house keys to ID cards. Though some businesses and communities [are already experimenting](<https://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2010/09/28/the-fundamental-problems-of-minority-report-style-biometrics/#.WQyDflXytD9>) with this technology, it's going to be some time before we're being served [personalized ads in public spaces](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiDMlFycNrw>) and [getting eye transplants](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe0FDvFRtM>) to avoid Johnny Law. But according to a report in *Fortune,* Ford CEO Mark Fields has plans to turn your Fusion into a PreCog a lot sooner than that.

All right, not exactly. But what *was* revealed at *Fortune's* Brainstorm Health conference on Wednesday is that [Ford has reached out to Flex,](<https://fortune.com/2017/05/03/ford-self-driving-car-biometric/>) the makers of the biometric sensors found in everything from FitBits to Apple products to hospital monitors, to investigate ways to bring that technology to its cars and trucks. The goal? Creating a stopgap of sorts between the [promised accident-free autonomous future](<https://www.thedrive.com/self-driving-cars/7324/the-way-we-talk-about-autonomy-is-a-lie-and-thats-dangerous>) and the current state where cars can't quite save drivers from themselves yet.

"The reason \[Fields\] was interested in medical is because he recognizes that there's biometric sensors that can actually go into a car, and those sensors can read a person’s biological makeup and understand whether the person is falling sleep at the wheel or not," Flex Chief Marketing Officer Michael Mendenhall told *Fortune*. "And the car would actually respond."

While a car tracking your vital signs to judge your competency (and possibly take control) might seem like yet another invasion of privacy in the name of progress, there are a lot of useful applications for this kind of technology. Think about all the [stories of accidents](<https://www.thedrive.com/news/7366/watch-from-inside-as-a-bus-drives-straight-into-a-train>) caused by genuine medical emergencies, like a seizure or a heart attack—biometric sensors can easily detect those events, and it's not a stretch to imagine pairing that ability with some sort of semi-autonomous emergency braking and pull-over maneuver to prevent a crash.

*Fortune* also points out how carbon dioxide sensors could help prevent hot car deaths by sending an alert to a driver's smartphone if a child or pet is left behind. Last year, Ford [announced several initiatives](<https://www.biometricupdate.com/201601/ford-rd-lab-exploring-the-integration-of-wearables-and-vehicles>) to begin connecting their cars with the vitals tracking data from smartwatches and fitness bracelets, but skipping the wearable middle man and integrating the sensors into their cars directly would increase the range of possible applications tenfold.

No word on that [retina-scanning keyless entry system](<https://www.biometricupdate.com/201502/ford-granted-patent-for-keyless-biometric-system-for-vehicles>) they patented in 2015, though.

## Author
Overseeing an expert staff of writers and editors from his lair in Los Angeles, Kyle shapes The Drive’s singular approach to covering the automotive industry and car culture. He’s been with the site as a writer since 2017, taking over as editor in 2019. On a daily basis, Kyle is responsible for directing The Drive's editorial news and car review content strategies, setting special coverage priorities, managing complex reporting projects, and ensuring what you read on the page meets our high internal standards for quality and trustworthiness. He is also the executive producer of The Drive's YouTube channel, which was relaunched in February 2024 to great acclaim and has accumulated over 14M new views in its first year back on the scene. He hosts a biweekly series on the channel where he breaks down fascinating and complicated stories from the automotive world.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/kylecheromcha.bsky.social>)  
[Instagram](<https://www.instagram.com/kylecheromcha>)  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-cheromcha-1550248a/>)