Touch ID might have been better in concept than as a practical security measure, but as with any template for future designs, Apple’s fingerprint scanner is just the beginning of the company’s exploration of biometrics. According to a recent patent, Apple wants to enable a wider range of functionality using your fingers, your eyes and even your voice in the future. The patent suggests that the owner of a device could store any user’s biometric data within the device and then restrict or allow access to certain features depending on the user’s identification.
“Given the prevalence of electronic devices […] that store data in the modern world, many users may own and/or utilize more than one such electronic device,” says the patent. “As such, users may need to wirelessly transfer data […] back and/or forth between the storage media of various such electronic devices in order to make full use out of the electronic devices.”
The patent continues by claiming that “manual configuration and/or passcodes entry system may be inconvenient for users. Users may not want to remember passcodes and/or have to enter such passcodes or similar security measures in order to transfer data between different electronic devices.”
By implementing biometric wireless transfer into future devices, Apple believes it can increase security while cutting down on the hassle of carrying around a flash drive or maintaining a Dropbox account. For the system to work effectively, a majority of Apple’s devices would need to feature a biometric scanner of some description. This patent was originally filed in 2012, but it could be a sign of an incoming growth in biometric technology.
