The Looming Battle Over Ownership of Your Car’s Data
By Bradley Berman
If you’re concerned about the misuse of personal data generated by your phone and laptop, then get ready for a new level of privacy risk posed by your car. Modern automobiles use dozens of precise sensors, cameras, and GPS tracking to generate large streams of useful data, much of which is personal and quickly transmitted to servers operated by the vehicle’s manufacturer. The use and exchange of that automotive data is projected to be a $1 trillion industry by about 2030. And yet, it’s not clear who owns it.
While the vast majority of drivers are willing to share some data to carmakers in exchange for greater safety or better routing, survey responses about vehicle-data ownership might change if motorists realized what could be collected while you’re rolling down the highway:
- A log of phone calls, texts, and web searches made in the car
- Video footage made by your car while you’re driving — including from some cameras that point inside the car
- The route of your most frequent trips
- A record of the radio stations you listen to
- Instances of texting while driving
- Instances of when you exceed posted speed limits or how hard you brake
- The weight of people in the front seats
In our work to create a blockchain-based transportation platform, the DAV Foundation is creating a peer-to-peer protocol that doesn’t funnel any information directly to a single server or a single data warehouse. Instead, via the use of blockchain technology and smart contracts, the terms for when and how the data generated by today’s family sedan (or tomorrow’s self-driving cars) are agreed upon by all parties.
Moreover, the non-profit DAV Foundation will establish the fundamental standards for this exchange — protocols that do not exist today. As a decentralized system, consumers will have ready access to privacy information — rather than having to search through a long, complicated set of privacy terms or a thick, printed owner’s manual. If specific privacy issues rise to the forefront, open-source developers could develop new tools or services for the DAV network, instead of relying on automakers to enhance privacy.
Our ethos about car-based data ownership echoes what Consumer Reports warned last week. The venerable CR believes that, until smart legislation is passed, carmakers should only collect data that’s reasonably needed to operate the vehicle. Consumer Reports goes further to say that consumers should be given access to a complete file of all the information that’s been collected from the vehicle.
There are signs that automakers recognize the need for clear rules about data and related communication standards. Four of the world’s largest carmakers last week joined MOBI, a new consortium that could use blockchain to address data-ownership issues. “The opportunity here is if you can create property rights, then that data can eventually become self-sovereign and owned by whoever generates it — whether that’s an individual owner, a fleet operator, a city government perhaps operating traffic lights, whatever,” Chris Ballinger, the chief executive of MOBI, told CoinDesk. Of course, as Ballinger suggests, the coming Internet of Transportation is much bigger than any single group of automakers.
The purpose of establishing a better set of car-based privacy guidelines and rules is not to horde data. It’s just the opposite — to allow its free exchange. If car data can become “self-sovereign,” as Ballinger puts it, the way is paved for the data to be aggregated and analyzed for improvements to the larger transportation system. Instead of being used for expedient business purposes, like beaming advertising to our cars or telling us it’s time for an oil change, that data could help us better understand traffic patterns, enhance safety, reduce congestion, and make it easier to find a parking spot.
The same data will also be central to developing the critical high-definition maps needed for autonomous vehicles. “If you think about cars, drones, or advanced robotics, all these things that need to move from A to B, you need navigation technology” Edzard Overbeek, the chief executive of digital mapping company HERE told me in 2016. BMW, Daimler, and Audi acquired HERE for $3.1 billion in December 2015.
The battle of car data and privacy will not be resolved overnight. Various entities could make a land grab for ownership of the data. Considering the $1 trillion opportunity, that’s to be expected. But the DAV Foundation’s approach is different. We are doggedly pursuing the creation of completely open protocols for the fair exchange of the data. It’s the first step toward the best possible version of the Internet of Transportation that’s heading our way.
