What types of data are likely to be collected?

Connected cars or partially or fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) may collect data from numerous sources, both in relation to the vehicle itself including location, performance, failures, driving or parking offences and accidents, as well as the vehicle’s environment including:

1. •

   data from the embedded road infrastructure

2. •

   the state of the roads

3. •

   the weather

4. •

   surrounding vehicles and nearby amenities

They will also process data regarding the vehicle’s occupants, such as personal identification information, preferences for routes or vehicles or regular pick up and drop off addresses.

The ICO has already confirmed that data collected by the vehicles, whether in its raw form or when combined with other sources of data, will likely constitute ‘personal data’ for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and may in some cases amount to ‘sensitive’ personal data.

The technology offers a number of options for managing connectivity within the vehicle; embedded devices (where the processing power and connectivity come directly from the vehicle), tethered solutions (connectivity is provided through external modems such as the driver’s SIM or a USB, while the intelligence remains embedded in the vehicle) or integrated (connectivity is based on integration between the vehicle and a paired mobile device but all intelligence remains on the device). Embedded systems tend to