Why Driver’s Benefit is the Linchpin of High Mobility’s Data Platform.
At High Mobility we make personal car data available. It is our job to create frameworks that make sure that vehicle data is utilized in ways that put drivers first.
The digitization of our lives and our economies is in full swing, from Industry 4.0 to the corona-driven home office. Digital collaboration is intensifying, especially in businesses. Online meetings are replacing face-to-face interactions. The boundaries between the private and the public are blurring. According to one study, internet traffic due to video conferencing increased by 120% in 2020. This traffic is not solely business related. Private chatter, children’s noises, living room furniture or kitchen equipment is involuntarily shared in the background.
Industries, organizations and businesses — and also our private lives — are getting more and more digitized. Public spaces, production facilities, warehouses, shops, supermarkets and offices, but also private spaces, our flats and our private cars are interconnected by means of interfaces and digital data streams.
While this brave new world has many conveniences — cheap phone calls, easy collaboration, instant online shopping, entertainment on-demand etc. — it is only possible if we share private information with various third parties — first and foremost with big tech companies from like Google, Amazon, or Facebook, but also with smaller entities like advertising networks or other data processors.
Products and objects, from telephones, TVs and smart home devices to cars, traffic lights, supermarket shelves and other infrastructure are equipped with countless sensors, on-board computers and internet connections. Individuals often are unable to fully understand the devices they interact with. It is frequently unclear where in their immediate proximity such objects might be and what they might record and transmit.
Not everyone is comfortable with this situation. Individuals, and companies are concerned that their personal or private data will be misused or that it could fall into the wrong hands. In Germany, only 3 out of 10 think that their data is safe on the internet.
Since the collection, processing and sharing of data is largely invisible, people should be aware of where private data might be recorded. This applies particularly to car data as cars become increasingly connected.
Modern cars monitor more than their location, speed or tire pressure. More advanced features like driver fatigue monitoring or even eye tracking (here or here) are becoming standard features of modern vehicles. Whether or not all these data points are being sent to the cloud or made available to third parties, it is conceivable that it will happen.
Driving a car is a personal, almost intimate experience. For many their private car is a private space — like an extended living room. When driving alone, people feel unobserved. They might sing along with the radio, pick their noses, or unconsciously make strange or funny movements to relax or to stay awake. They exhibit patterns that they would not exhibit in public. Some drivers also let their emotions run a bit wild, which might be more or less subtly reflected in their driving style. Additionally, drivers always run the risk of consciously or unconsciously committing minor rule violations.
Car data has the potential to reveal what is perceived as the core of one’s own personality. It further may expose misconduct, some of which could even have legal consequences. There are good reasons for drivers to restrict who can see or use their car data.
This is where a conflict of interest between drivers and digital service providers arises.
Most digital services providers, including those dealing with car data, see collecting as much data as possible as their bread-and-butter. They work from a mindset in which they think that they only do their job well if they collect and process as much data as they can.
However, we think that this approach to data collecting and data processing will be discontinued. The general public and also political actors are waking up to the risks of technologies and business models built on top of this worldview. We believe that it represents ‘the old world’ of digital networks and the internet and that a ‘new world’ is in the making.
The digital transformation of our institutions and organizations is taking a turn.
This is also reflected in recent standards and regulations. The extended vehicle web services standard ISO 20078 for example is a technical guideline for automakers on how to prvide data to 3rd parties including recommendations for user consent and data protection. Another example is the information security management standard ISO/IEC 27001, which High Mobility has implemented. It contains guidelines about how to structure information security processes in organizations. Regulations such as the GDPR for the European Union (here and here) or the CCPA for California try to ensure that corporations and organizations collect, analyze and disclose personal data only with the explicit consent of their members or customers.
While these rules are important and must be followed, they only represent the legal side. However, the full application of this new approach can only be realized on the product side.
Most users of the internet and other digital services are still unaware to what extent their behavior might be recorded, transmitted, analyzed or shared. And even if they have ideas or opinions about it, they usually do not have the time or take the time to weigh up what is best for them.
‘Old world’ digital service providers know this. They try to adapt to the ‘new world’ by nudging their users to consent to continue sharing as much data as possible. They adjust the contractual framework, but the product remains the same.
At High Mobility, we believe that we have to do better. It is not enough to just ask for consent within the legal guidelines while trying to enable as much access to data as possible.
The recent calls for privacy demand a new way of thinking. Data protection and data privacy should not be seen as constraints but as features of new products and services.
Privacy-by-design is not just a catchphrase for us or something we try to comply with where it is legally required; it is what we do, a guiding principle of our product development and an integral part of our company DNA. Therefore, we focus not on data aggregation, but on what drivers actually want and need.
The linchpin of our data platform, neutral server and data marketplace is data transmission for the driver’s benefit. We have created a transparent and easy to use framework for developers and all sorts of service providers. All our code is open source. It allows the fast and safe development of applications that are transparent for drivers and easily configurable in terms of data access. One of the core features of our API is that it allows straightforward and reliable consent management for individual data points and individual applications.
Providing data for the benefit of drivers is at the core of our product. This means on the one hand that our data quality is impeccable, and on the other that we guarantee full transparency in regard of data exchange, on the server side as well as on the API side.
Our CTO Kevin Valdek put it succinctly:
Car data can be used to provide great personalized services, but nobody should feel uncomfortable or have disadvantages because their car is connected. Drivers are trusting us with their data. It is our responsibility to be transparent and to make sure they have experiences that will improve their lives.
This approach is consistent with recent developments in the fields of digital communication, data processing and data engineering. The success of applications like Signal’s encrypted messaging, or recent developments at Apple with regard to application and web tracking show that privacy-by-design is becoming a major approach with regard to handling personal user data.
At High Mobility we make personal car data available. It is our job to create frameworks that make sure that vehicle data is utilized in ways that puts drivers first.
One of our applications in development, which is soon to be launched, exactly is taking this into account. Please stay tuned.
