Skip to main content

American drivers concerned about hacking of autonomous cars, says survey

An online survey by the University of Michigan Sustainable Worldwide Transportation Department asked American adults about their level of concern with cyber-security of personally owned autonomous vehicles (with and without driver controls) and current conventional vehicles looked at both vehicle security and data privacy. Within vehicle security, the issues examined were hacking vehicles to cause crashes, hacking by terrorists to use the vehicle as a weapon, disabling many vehicles simultaneously and di
February 8, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
An online survey by the University of Michigan Sustainable Worldwide Transportation Department asked American adults about their level of concern with cyber-security of personally owned autonomous vehicles (with and without driver controls) and current conventional vehicles looked at both vehicle security and data privacy.

Within vehicle security, the issues examined were hacking vehicles to cause crashes, hacking by terrorists to use the vehicle as a weapon, disabling many vehicles simultaneously and disabling the main traffic-management system. Within data privacy, the issues examined were gaining access to data on personal travel patterns and gaining access to personal information not related to travel.

According to the report, Cyber-security Concerns with Self-Driving and Conventional Vehicles, researchers found that hacking of autonomous vehicles with controls is of greater concern than hacking of conventional vehicles. However, hacking of vehicles is of concern even for conventional vehicles.

Respondents also said hacking of autonomous vehicles without controls is of greater concern than hacking of autonomous vehicles with controls. They also expressed more concern about hacking to gain control of vehicles or the main traffic management system than hacking of vehicles to get access to personal information.

Related Content

  • March 29, 2018
    Report highlights community impact of new mobility options
    Local authorities and communities must understand the impacts of the new mobility options and regulate to get the transport systems they want, according to a new report. Colin Sowman takes a look. Outside of the big cities plagued with congestion, the existing transportation system(s) often cope adequately, and the ongoing workload (maintenance, safety…) is more than enough to keep local transport authorities busy. Is it, therefore, a good use of public service employees’ time to keep abreast of the raft
  • March 29, 2018
    Report highlights community impact of new mobility options
    Local authorities and communities must understand the impacts of the new mobility options and regulate to get the transport systems they want, according to a new report. Colin Sowman takes a look. Outside of the big cities plagued with congestion, the existing transportation system(s) often cope adequately, and the ongoing workload (maintenance, safety…) is more than enough to keep local transport authorities busy. Is it, therefore, a good use of public service employees’ time to keep abreast of the raft
  • February 1, 2012
    Cooperative systems and privacy not mutually exclusive
    Are co-operative systems and personal privacy mutually exclusive? Not necessarily, says Neil Hoose. But the more advanced the application, the greater the concession of privacy may have to become. ITS Stockholm in 2009 and the Cooperative Mobility Showcase event which took place alongside Intertraffic in Amsterdam in March this year both featured live, on-street demonstrations of safety and driver information applications that used Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications,
  • February 6, 2012
    Cooperative systems and privacy not mutually exclusive
    Are co-operative systems and personal privacy mutually exclusive? Not necessarily, says Neil Hoose. But the more advanced the application, the greater the concession of privacy may have to become