A motorist demonstrates Hyundai Motor Co.’s fingerprint sensing system, which enables users to unlock car doors and start the engine, in this photo provided by the carmaker.
SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — An increasing number of cases involving unlicensed drivers stealing another person’s license to drive shared cars is calling for an effective solution.
Car-sharing services that allow drivers to rent cars via smartphone apps are convenient to use, but have the risk of allowing juveniles and unlicensed drivers access to vehicles.
The Road Traffic Authority reported that the number of rent-a-car accidents involving unlicensed drivers amounted to 366 cases in 2018, 375 cases in 2019, 399 cases in 2020, and 320 cases in 2021, according to the state-run traffic authority’s Traffic Accident Analysis System.
Introducing an artificial intelligence (AI) may raise the possibility of rooting out crimes involving unlicensed drivers when renting or borrowing cars, experts say.
“Allowing a certain company to own everyone’s bio-data and use it for identification is an outright infringement of privacy, and it is simply not possible,” said an official at SOCAR Inc., a car-sharing and mobility service provider.
In contrast, Lotte Rental Car’s car-sharing brand Greencar said it is reviewing the possibility of introducing fingerprint authorization and video call identification to the car-sharing service, since they are already being used in the financial industry.
“Bio-authorization technology may come with an exorbitant cost, and this may not be so attractive for many car-sharing companies. Nevertheless, they should look at it as an investment and a way of taking social responsibility,” said Park Moo-hyeok, a senior researcher at the Road Traffic Authority.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
