In a recently published “Staff Perspective,” the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) appears to be staying true to the regulatory humility approach Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen underscored in her opening remarks to the connected cars and autonomous vehicles workshop the FTC co-hosted with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) last summer.
The Consumer Protection Bureau of the FTC ultimately distills the privacy and data security workshop that covered a wide range of existing and future connected car technologies from infotainment systems such as GM’s new Marketplace feature to vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (such as traffic lights and cameras) communications capabilities to fully automated “driverless” vehicles down to the following takeaway: Connected vehicles will generate – and businesses will collect – a vast amount of aggregated, non-sensitive and sensitive data, which may lead to privacy risk due to unexpected uses and data security risk.