FIA: EU data protection rules mean drivers control who accesses their car data

FIA Region I has just released a legal study exploring how the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will apply to connected car data.
June 28, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

8054 FIA Region I has just released a legal study exploring how the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will apply to connected car data.

Since most car data can be associated to the registered owner of the vehicle, it qualifies as personal data. According to a recent ruling from the European Court of Justice, data qualifies as personal if it is in the hand of any party that can obtain sufficient information to identify the user. Vehicle manufacturers, who can easily identify vehicle owners, should therefore treat most vehicle data as personal data.

The GDPR protects the portability of data, meaning that citizens may change service providers. This principle applies to car data as well, which means that there should be a choice about who accesses car data and for what purpose. However, without clear legislation on the latency (or delay of delivery) and format, data portability could be compromised as, realistically, third-party service providers may struggle due to delays and unreadable data to provide equivalent services with vehicle manufacturers.

The European product liability and product safety legislation do not justify extensive monitoring of real time car data for vehicle manufacturers.

FIA Region I director general, Laurianne Krid, said “This legal memorandum shows us what the European Data Protection Regulation can and cannot do, when it comes to car data. While it grants users certain rights, we still feel that specific legislation is needed to ensure innovation, choice and ultimately create value for connected vehicle users.”

The study findings were disclosed during a debate in the European Parliament hosted by MEP Ismail Ertug on ‘Autonomous Driving and Data: Access, Ownership, Security’. The legal observations complement the My Car My Data campaign run by FIA Region I, which aims at raising awareness regarding connected vehicles and the use of data.

For more information on companies in this article

FIA

Related Content

  • CityMobil2 selects first seven sites
    May 7, 2014
    The European project CityMobil2 has selected the first round of sites to run demonstrations and showcases of automated road transport systems, which are made up of vehicles operating without a driver in collective mode, under the control of a fleet and infrastructure supervision system.
    Read More
  • Speed reduction measures - carrot or stick?
    January 23, 2012
    In Sweden, marketing company DDB Stockholm employed a mock speed camera as part of a promotional campaign for automotive manufacturer Volkswagen. The result was worldwide online interest and promotion of the debate over excessive speed to the national level. A developing trend in traffic management policy is to look at how to induce road users to modify their behaviour by incentivising change rather than forcing it through the application of penalties. There have been several studies conducted into this; an
    Read More
  • Changing driving conditions need ongoing driver training
    January 23, 2012
    Trevor Ellis, chairman of the ITS UK Enforcement Interest Group, considers the role of ongoing driver training in increasing compliance. It is over 30 years since I passed my driving test. The world was quite a different place then, in that there were only half the vehicles there are now on the UK's roads, mobile phones did not really exist and (in the UK at least) the vast majority of us drove cars which by today's standards exhibited dreadful dynamic stability and were woefully underpowered.
    Read More
  • Authorities look to MaaS for new solutions and cost savings
    July 18, 2017
    The structure of society and the way in which our cities work will be completely transformed by Mobility as a Service (MaaS), Finland’s minister of transport and communications Anne Berner, told ITS International’s recent MaaS Market conference 2017 in London. In her keynote address, Berner told a packed audience of more than 200 ITS professionals that MaaS has the potential to help governments around the world meet their big city targets such as the rate of employment, the environment, the efficient use of
    Read More

Highlighted Content