'Digital Key' Standard Uses Your Phone To Unlock Your Car (engadget.com)

The Car Connectivity Consortium, a mix of major smartphone and automotive brands, has posted a Digital Key 1.0 standard that will let you download a virtual key that can unlock your vehicle, start the engine and even share access with other drivers. Engadget reports: Unsurprisingly, the technology focuses on security more than anything else. Your car manufacturer uses an existing trusted system to send the digital key to your phone, which uses close-range NFC to grant access to your ride. You can't just unlock your car from inside your home, then, but this would also force would-be thieves to be physically present with your phone when trying to unlock your car. Apple, LG and Samsung are among the phone brands in the group, while car brands including BMW, Hyundai and the Volkswagen group are also onboard. There's also talk of a version 2.0 spec that will promise more interoperability between cars and mobile devices in the first quarter of 2019.

Comments

Sigh

[ledow]

- Doesn't solve any existing problem.

- Creates new problems all of its very own.

Not least "your battery runs flat, but you need to open it to jump-start it" (so either all the doors open, or you can't get into it at all), "I locked my phone in the car", "Someone sniffed the NFC transaction from across the street- NFC is short-range-powered, but long-range-ordinary-radio-signal", "Every garage has a way to open that car if the system should fail and you can buy the kit to open any car for $20k", "My phone got a virus and now anyone can open my car", "Previous owners of the car can just walk up to it with their phone to unlock it", etc. etc. etc.

Re:Sigh

[Registered Coward v2]

- Creates new problems all of its very own.

Beyond your examples, it provides a way for phone manufacturers to know when you are operating a vehicle, under the assumption that the phone used to unlock and start is the drivers. Once they have that information, how will they use it? Turning off texting and other messaging apps would certainly help solve the problem of idiots who text and drive, but how else can that information be used? What other services will be disabled if the think you are driving? Siri already won't let me open the garage door when it thinks I am driving, even if I am in my own driveway.

Single Point of Failure

[mentil]

So now when my phone gets stolen/broken/lost/runs out of battery, I have no way to call for help OR to start my car. Bonus points if the phone charger is locked inside the car-that-won't-start. Extra bonus points if you don't carry any method of payment aside from mobile payment.