Passwords have gone from granting your friends entry into your living-room fort to protecting your online banking information.
Each day we visit multiple sites which require us to log in— logging into email, logging into social media accounts like Pinterest and Facebook and logging in as a returning customer on your favorite retail sites.
How are all those minutes of logging in adding up? Ford Europe isn’t going to take the time to count.
Ford Europe goes hands-free
We all know the convenience of having a car that unlocks when you get close to it and unlocks when you walk away. Ogilvy, Paris and Ford have taken that idea and taken it from some of their car models and applied it to computers.
Essentially how it works is when you approach your computer with your phone, it will log you into all your online accounts automatically. Then, when you leave the vicinity of your computer, it will log you out.
This hands-free technology works if you have your phone nearby, say in your pocket or even if you leave it on your desk. However, it is currently not compatible with every computer operating system.
Automatic login would put less strain on your keyboard yes, but would it put any strain on your privacy?
Password protected = privacy?
Our passwords are designed to gives us privacy. We don’t want our friends logging into our Facebook pages to write embarrassing status updates, and we surely don’t want hackers to steal valuable information like credit card and social security numbers.
Privacy is a huge issue even when choosing an Internet provider. Whether you have a cable Internet provider in a thriving city or a satellite Internet provider in the city outskirts, ensuring that you have online privacy is a big determining factor.
We know this technology can open car doors, but is it opening doors to identity theft too?
Out with the old, in with the improved
What Ford Europe is doing is taking a technology that exists and changing it into something different: instead of opening locks, we will log you online. The technology is being reinvented, not being retooled.
For example, satellite Internet was developed after using satellites for the military – they didn’t reinvent the technology, just tweaked it to serve a different purpose. This begs the question: what other technologies will be improved upon?
Whatever technologies come in the next 12 months, five years or 10 years, you can bet that privacy will always be a core value.
The convenience of Ford Europe’s idea is indeed tantalizing, but is the convenience enough to outweigh the possible privacy the risk?
Cooper Sanders
Cooper Sanders has been guest blogging since launching his own website in 2011. An Internet and technology enthusiast, Cooper enjoys writing about new technology trends. For questions or comments on this article, please email satelliteinternetcom@gmail.com.