Patent Application
20210173911
The present patent application claims the priority of Japanese patent application No. 2017/232374 filed on Dec. 4, 2017, and the entire contents of Japanese patent application No. 2017/232374 are hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to an on-board device.
A vehicle anti-theft device is known, which is provided with a mobile device authentication means which authenticates a mobile device based on identification information received from the mobile device, a driver authentication means which acquires driver identification information unique to a driver and authenticates the driver as a pre-registered driver based on comparison with pre-registered driver identification information, an information input means receiving an input of setting information which is information set by the registered driver, and an authentication control means which selects either authentication using the driver authentication means or authentication based on the setting information input by the registered driver and controls start of a vehicle based on an authentication result from the selected authentication and an authentication result provided by the mobile device authentication means (see, e.g., Patent Literature 1).
This vehicle anti-theft device uses biometric information of the driver as the driver identification information.
Patent Literature 1: JP 2010/208554 A
The vehicle anti-theft device disclosed in Patent Literature 1 has a problem that when, e.g., the owner of the vehicle changes, personal information such as biometric information of a previous owner, which has been left undeleted, is left in the vehicle.
It is an object of the invention to provide an on-board device which is capable of deleting personal information left undeleted after an owner of a vehicle has changed.
According to an embodiment of the invention, an on-board device comprises: a storage unit that stores personal information of a user registered to a vehicle, and a control unit that deletes the personal information of the user by controlling the storage unit when the vehicle has stayed at a certain location for a predetermined period.
According to an embodiment of the invention, it is possible to provide an on-board device which is capable of deleting personal information left undeleted after an owner of a vehicle has changed.
An on-board device in an embodiment has a storage unit that stores personal information of a user registered to a vehicle, and a control unit that deletes the personal information of the user by controlling the storage unit when the vehicle has stayed at a certain location for a predetermined period.
When the vehicle has stayed at a certain location for a predetermined period, this on-board device deletes personal information left in a vehicle by determining that the owner of the vehicle has changed. Therefore, unlike when such a configuration is not adopted, personal information left undeleted can be deleted after an owner of a vehicle has changed.
An on-board device 1 is mounted on a vehicle 8 to manage personal information 41 of users including the owner of the vehicle 8. The vehicle 8 here is used by, e.g., plural users (User A to User C, as an example), as shown in
The on-board device 1 has, e.g., a storage unit 4 which stores the personal information 41 of the users registered to the vehicle 8, and a control unit 6 which deletes the personal information 41 of the users by controlling the storage unit 4 when the vehicle 8 has stayed at a certain location for a predetermined period.
It is also configured that, when the vehicle 8 has stayed at a predetermined registered location 9 as the certain location for a predetermined period, the control unit 6 deletes the personal information 41 of the users by determining that the owner of the vehicle 8 has changed.
The personal information 41 of each user includes at least biometric information 42 of the user. As an example, the biometric information 42 includes fingerprint, vein, facial image, iris, etc., used to create a biometric authentication template. As an example, the biometric information 42 in the present embodiment includes fingerprint, facial image and iris shown in
The on-board device 1 is further provided with, e.g., a personal information registration unit 2 which receives registration of the personal information 41, as shown in
The on-board device 1 is also configured to exchange, e.g., the personal information 41, etc., via an in-vehicle LAN (Local Area Network) 81 in a vehicle communication system 80, as shown in
As an example, the vehicle communication system 80 is configured that the on-board device 1, a vehicle control unit 82, an authentication unit 83 and a navigation device 84 are electromagnetically connected via the in-vehicle LAN 81.
The in-vehicle LAN 81 is, e.g., an in-vehicle network such as CAN (Controller Area Network) or LIN (Local Interconnect Network) which enables reciprocal exchange of signals and information by wire or wirelessly.
The vehicle control unit 82 is, e.g., a microcomputer composed of a CPU (Central Processing Unit) performing calculation and processing, etc., of the acquired data according to a stored program, and a RAM (Random Access Memory) and a ROM (Read Only Memory) which are semiconductor memories, etc. The vehicle control unit 82 comprehensively controls, e.g., electronic devices such as sensors mounted on the vehicle 8.
The authentication unit 83 performs authentication using, e.g., the biometric information 42 of the user. As an example, the authentication unit 83 is mounted on a switch device for giving an instruction to turn on/off a drive system of the vehicle 8. In this case, the authentication unit 83 reads, e.g., a fingerprint or vein of an operation finger operating the start switch and compares it with a template which is stored in the storage unit 4 of the on-board device 1, acquired as the personal information 41 and used for authentication of the fingerprint or vein. Alternatively, as an example, the authentication unit 83 may be configured to use facial image or iris of the biometric information 42 to perform authentication for an electronic device other than the start switch.
The navigation device 84 measures, e.g., the current latitude/longitude of the vehicle 8 by using a GPS (Global Positioning System), etc., generates current location information S2 including the measured latitude/longitude as the current location and outputs it to the on-board device 1. The current location information S2 is output, e.g., when the drive system of the vehicle 8 is stopped.
The personal information registration unit 2 is used to register the personal information 41. As an example, the personal information registration unit 2 is configured to register user's information such as fingerprint, facial image, iris, full name, birth date, email address, password, etc., as shown in
Text data such as full name, birth date and email address is registered using a touchpad or a virtual keyboard, etc. Biometric information such as fingerprint, facial image, iris is registered, e.g., as follows.
Fingerprint is registered using, e.g., a sensor configured to read the fingerprint pattern, such as optical, capacitive, electrical field intensity measurement, pressure-sensitive, or thermal, etc.
Vein of an operating finger or palm is registered using, e.g., a sensor configured to read the vein pattern based on reflection of emitted infrared light.
Facial image is registered using, e.g., a sensor configured to read an uneven shape on a subject based on depths at plural measurement points on the captured subject.
Iris is registered using, e.g., a sensor configured to read an iris by emitting infrared light and processing the captured image.
The personal information registration unit 2 generates and outputs, e.g., registration information S1 based on information to be registered.
The storage unit 4 is constructed from, e.g., a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or a semiconductor memory, etc. The storage unit 4 in the present embodiment is a semiconductor memory. This semiconductor memory may be a RAM mounted on the control unit 6.
The storage unit 4 is configured to generate, e.g., a table 40 based on the registration information S1 acquired from the personal information registration unit 2, as shown in
The table 40 contains, e.g., the personal information 41 including the biometric information 42 associated with each user, as shown in
The control unit 6 is, e.g., a microcomputer composed of a CPU performing calculation and processing, etc., of the acquired data according to a stored program, and a RAM and a ROM which are semiconductor memories, etc. The ROM stores, e.g., a program for operation of the control unit 6, registered location information 60 and a time threshold value 61. The RAM is used as, e.g., a storage area for temporarily storing calculation results, etc. The control unit 6 also has, inside thereof, a means for generating a clock signal, and operates and measure time based on the clock signal.
The registered location information 60 is information about the predetermined registered location 9 at which the personal information 41 is deleted. The predetermined registered location 9 is a vehicle retailer, as an example. The vehicle retailer is, e.g., a dealer or a used-car seller, etc.
When, e.g., the vehicle has stayed at these retailers for a long time, it is highly likely that the owner of such a vehicle has changed. Then, the personal information 41 of a previous owner, when left in such a vehicle, may be abused or may remain as a candidate biometric information 42 for authentication and result in that authentication takes long time. For this reason, after a predetermined period of time has elapsed since the vehicle moved to the retailer (the registered location 9), the control unit 6 deletes the personal information 41 which has been left undeleted.
The time threshold value 61 is a threshold which represents the predetermined period. The time threshold value 61 is one month, as an example. In other words, the control unit 6 deletes the personal information 41 left undeleted after one month has elapsed since the vehicle moved to the retailer (the registered location 9), as an example.
In detail, the control unit 6 compares, e.g., the current location information S2, which is acquired via the in-vehicle LAN 81, with the registered location information 60 and determines whether or not the current location of the vehicle 8 is the registered location 9. When the current location is the registered location 9, the control unit 6 starts measuring time. When the measured time exceeds the predetermined period, i.e., exceeds the time threshold value 61, the control unit 6 deletes the personal information 41 from the table 40. Alternatively, the configuration may be such that when the vehicle 8 moves out of the registered location 9 for test drive, etc., for vehicle sales and returns to the registered location 9 within a predetermined period of time (e.g., 1 hour) during when the control unit 6 is measuring time, it is regarded that the vehicle 8 has not moved out of the registered location 9 and the control unit 6 continuously measures time including such the moving time. In addition, time measurement does not necessarily need to be continuous. In case that the vehicle 8 moves out of the registered location 9 temporarily as described above, time measurement may be performed intermittently where such time is excluded from the measured time.
For example, as a method of deleting the personal information 41, the control unit 6 initializes the table 40. That is, the control unit 6 deletes, e.g., all personal information 41 registered by the user A to the user C shown in
As shown in
An example of an operation of the on-board device 1 in the present embodiment will be described below along with the flowchart in
When the drive system of the vehicle 8 is stopped, the vehicle control unit 82 controls the navigation device 84 which thereby outputs the current location information S2, which is information about the current location, to the on-board device 1. The control unit 6 of the on-board device 1 acquires the current location information S2 via the in-vehicle LAN 81 (Step 1).
The control unit 6 compares the current location information S2 with the registered location information 60 and determines whether or not the current location is the registered location 9. When the current location is the registered location 9 (Step 2: YES), the control unit 6 starts time measurement (Step 3).
The control unit 6 measures time while, e.g., monitoring whether the vehicle 8 is staying at the registered location 9. When the vehicle 8 continuously stays at the registered location 9 (Step 4: YES) and the measured time exceeds the time threshold value 61 (Step 5: YES), the control unit 6 initializes the table 40, i.e., deletes the left personal information 41, by controlling the storage unit 4 (Step 6) and ends the process.
Meanwhile, when the current location is not the registered location 9 in Step 2 (Step 2: NO), the control unit 6 ends the process.
Also when the vehicle 8 moves out of the registered location 9 in Step 4 (Step 4: NO), the control unit 6 ends the process.
Furthermore, when the measured time is less than the time threshold value 61 in Step 5 (Step 5: NO), the control unit 6 moves to Step 4.
The on-board device 1 in the present embodiment can delete the personal information 41 left undeleted after an owner of a vehicle has changed. In detail, when the vehicle has stayed at a certain location (the registered location 9) for a predetermined period, the on-board device 1 deletes the personal information 41 left in the vehicle by determining that the owner of the vehicle has changed. Therefore, unlike when such a configuration is not adopted, the personal information 41 left undeleted can be deleted after an owner of a vehicle has changed. Since the on-board device 1 can delete the personal information 41 which has been left undeleted, user's privacy is protected.
The on-board device 1 can delete not only the personal information 41 but also the biometric information 42 included in the personal information 41 and thus can prevent abuse of the biometric information 42, unlike when biometric information is not deleted and left in the vehicle.
In the on-board device 1, if the biometric information 42 of a previous owner is left even though the owner of the vehicle has changed, this unnecessary biometric information 42 is still used at the time of authentication by verification of the biometric information 42 and this may cause an increase in authentication time. However, since the on-board device 1 can delete the biometric information 42 which has been left undeleted, it is possible to prevent an increase in authentication time.
Although the embodiment of the invention has been described, the embodiment is merely an example and the invention according to claims is not to be limited thereto. This new embodiment may be implemented in various other forms, and various omissions, substitutions and changes, etc., can be made without departing from the gist of the invention. In addition, all combinations of the features described in the embodiment are not necessary to solve the problem of the invention. Further, this embodiment is included within the scope and gist of the invention and also within the invention described in the claims and the range of equivalency.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-232374 | Dec 2017 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2018/042580 | 11/16/2018 | WO | 00 |
