Connected Vehicles – Are Commuters in The Privacy Driving Seat?
We seem to be living in a world that is barreling headlong towards a science fiction reality that was the dream of writers in the 1950’s. Our parents were shown images and told stories of an ever more connected world where one would have personal jetpacks and driverless cars would whisk us toward destinations with little or no input from the frail human beings who would simply be passive participants in the journey. Those driverless cars are seemingly just around the corner (no jetpacks as yet). But the future is certain when it comes to connected vehicles.
These connected vehicles use sensor data to take actions without the input of the driver and store data for later use. This can be something as seemingly harmless as locking doors above a certain speed but there are other types of data that the connected vehicle stores for future processing. This data is used by parties that are aggregating the information for uses that the driver may not be comfortable with – and that he or she has not been given the option to consent to or opt out of.
Many vehicles are now connected to the Internet or to the manufacturers who collect data on the vehicles’ performance. Take for instance the Nissan Leaf – an electric car that ships with a proprietary smart app. This app allows the driver to remotely start the vehicle, adjust temperature settings and monitor the cars’ charge, amongst other features. Companies like Tesla are also testing the limits of how we interact with our motor vehicles – and at the same time gathering information and data on how owners interact with their connected vehicles – all in order to improve the performance of its own artificial intelligence systems.
These advances are potentially worrying as far as connected vehicles are concerned. Data about driving habits and driver performance that are remotely supplied to third parties may have long term implications on a drivers’ right to privacy. The vehicle of the 21st century is no longer just a machine that gets the driver from A to B. It is a data collection device – and the information that it collects is becoming increasingly granular. The ability of automobiles to collect data for later aggregation by third parties such as manufacturers is problematic in itself. However, that problem may pale into insignificance when compared to the fact that the data may be onsold to other parties without the permission of the driver. Think about data that could be supplied to an insurance company about the driver’s habits – and then used by that company to make adjustments to the premiums that it charges that individual.
This is not just a theoretical scenario. In the United States, insurance companies are offering ‘usage based’ premiums if clients agree to install proprietary telemetric systems into cars. These systems monitor other information gathering electronic systems that are part of the cars increasingly intelligent data gathering suite.
