Skip to main content

Japan looking at technology to prevent hacking of self-driving cars

According to the Japan Times, Japan’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is concerned about the possibility that a cyber attack on self-driving car systems might lead to traffic accidents. It has drawn up guidelines in a bid to defend against the hacking of a proposed next-generation driving support system that aims to help accelerate the development of autonomous driving cars. The ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) Connect Promotion Consortium, which is made up of automakers and electronics-m
August 24, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
According to the Japan Times, Japan’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is concerned about the possibility that a cyber attack on self-driving car systems might lead to traffic accidents. It has drawn up guidelines in a bid to defend against the hacking of a proposed next-generation driving support system that aims to help accelerate the development of autonomous driving cars.

The ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) Connect Promotion Consortium, which is made up of automakers and electronics-maker, is developing the system with the government. It plans to establish specifications on the technology to prevent cyber attacks in autumn this year.

The system is aimed at helping ensure safe driving by distributing information on nearby automobiles and pedestrians, traffic signals and data collected through radio communications to moving vehicles and alerting drivers to possible dangers such as blind spots. It is also expected to improve automatic emergency braking technologies to prevent collisions.

The consortium will consider encrypting such information by using special technologies to prevent it from being altered.

Autonomous driving uses such equipment as an on-vehicle camera and sensor that collect information on the surrounding environment, with related technologies being developed by automakers and electronics-makers.

Toyota is said to be considering introducing equipment compatible with the system in a planned fully remodelled version of its Prius hybrid vehicle and other vehicle models.

Related Content

  • In-vehicle vision-based systems and autonomous vehicles
    January 11, 2013
    The Artificial Vision and Intelligent Systems Laboratory (VisLab) of Italy’s Parma University has built itself a fine pedigree in basic and applied research which has developed machine vision algorithms and intelligent systems for the automotive field. In 1998, a VisLab-equipped Lancia Thema named ‘Argo’ travelled along the famous Mille Miglia race route and completed 98 per cent of it autonomously using then-current technology. In 2005, VisLab provided the vision element of the Terramax, a collaborative un
  • Israel aspires to ITS-led future
    May 29, 2013
    Shay Soffer, Chief Scientist with the Israel National Road Safety Authority, talks to Jason Barnes about his country’s current ITS outlook and how he sees this developing in the future. Israel ranks alongside countries such as the US and France in the road safety stakes, with an average 7.1 deaths per billion kilometres driven. But at that point the similarities end, as the country’s overriding issue is pedestrian safety. This is driven by several factors, including being a relatively small country where pe
  • Bitsensing makes modern history in fair Verona
    July 3, 2025
    Shakespeare’s Verona was a place of star-cross’d lovers – today, it’s the traffic which is more of a problem. Euichul Kim at Bitsensing takes up our story…
  • Need for harmonisation in ITS standards
    February 1, 2012
    As the calendar rolls over, and we hop from continent to continent and World Congress to World Congress, where Memoranda of Understanding and cooperation agreements are the headline news, it is easy for those not intimately involved to forget that standards definition is a well-nigh continual process. Significant progress has been made in recent months towards achieving the critical mass and economies of scale which are going to drive development and deployment in, amongst other things, cooperative infrastr