Data protection causing potential road-block for driverless cars

Report explores the latest issues in data protection and driverless vehicles and what they mean for consumers

Vehicle manufacturers will need to get their head around new European data protection rules if driverless cars are to become a reality, a new report has warned.

The whitepaper, published by international law firm Gowling WLG exactly two years before Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force, is called Are you data driven? and explores the latest issues in data protection and driverless vehicles and what they mean for consumers.

Carried out on behalf of the UK Autodrive self-driving vehicles project, the report examines how data protection regulation developments will affect innovations in the development of driverless vehicles. The law firm suggests that the whitepaper comes at an important time for the UK automotive industry as the country strives to become a global hub for the development of autonomous and connected vehicle technologies, and only 15% of people feel in control of their online personal data. The testing of driverless vehicles in the urban environment is also due to start later this year.

Stuart Young, head of automotive at Gowling WLG, said: "Vehicle manufacturers are going to have start thinking like social media providers - like the Google and Facebooks of this world. They will need to employ all the tools they use, like privacy notices and location-based consents, and be very aware that data protection compliance should not be taken lightly.”

The whitepaper is published just as Tesla reveals new data related to its Autopilot programme, now reporting 100 million miles driven with Autopilot active. The figure includes Autosteer and/or Traffic Aware Cruise Control – the autopilot’s main convenience features.   Tesla says the semi autonomous driving system will ultimately become a fully autonomous system.

At the EmTech Digital conference in San Francisco, Sterling Anderson, Tesla’s director of Autopilot Programs explained that the data collected from those trips is what Tesla is using to develop, refine and introduce more features in the future. The company has around 70,000 vehicles on the road capable of Autopilot, and those which enable is log 2.6 million miles a day.