One of the “problems” with voice assistants right now is that they can react to just about anyone. This is why earlier this year, there was a bit of a humorous situation where a news broadcaster accidentally activated Alexa for many viewers while on TV. The solution would be of course to create voice assistants that will only react to your voice.
We’ve yet to see that being implemented for most voice assistants in the market today, but this is a feature that Apple could be considering. In a patent discovered by Patently Apple, it reveals Apple’s plans to possibly include voice identification features in Siri in the future. The patent describes a system in which users will be able to save their voice with Siri, and whenever Siri is activated it checks against the saved voice to ensure that it is the owner of the device.
This means that even if your phone is unattended, users won’t be able to bypass the lockscreen by using Siri. This could also be used together with other Apple devices like Apple TV, where Siri will only recognize the owner which in turn could prevent other users in your home from making unauthorized purchases.
We’re not sure if Apple ever plans on implementing this feature into Siri, but it is one of the things that has been brought up in the past, plus it makes perfect sense too in today’s world where privacy and security are pretty hot topics.