Law Times

Law Times • march 19, 2018 Page 11 www.lawtimesnews.com Driverless vehicles hold privacy concerns BY MARG. BRUINEMAN For Law Times M otorists may have a reason to have pri- vacy concerns re- lated to driverless vehicles. Along with being auto- nomous, the driverless vehicle will have the ability to collect data about the driver. That leads to questions about what happens to that information, how it's used and shared and ensuring the privacy rights of the driver are preserved. In submissions made to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communica- tions regarding its study on the regulatory and technical issues related to the deployment of connected and automated ve- hicles made in November, the federal privacy commissioner, Daniel Therrien, noted that protecting the privacy interests of consumers is the underlying principle of privacy legislation. But some lawyers question whether the consent-based model is a practical approach for stakeholders as connectivity takes hold of our daily driver. "Connected and autonomous vehicles will have the capabil- ity of collecting a really broad array of data from a variety of sources," says Geoff Moysa, a Toronto-based litigation partner with McMillan LLP. "[They'll] have the potential to provide a very complete pic- ture of a person to the extent not quite realized yet by other con- nected technologies," he says. According to current pro- jections, to run on its own, the autonomous vehicle will be expected to gather and use telematics-type data to transmit information over distances. The driverless vehicle also is antici- pated to use GPS and trajectory for navigation and data record- ing, which is helpful in crash in- vestigations. While several aspects of the driverless car are still being developed, it is expected that vehicles would be able to com- municate with each other as well as with the infrastructure along the road for safe travelling and navigation. Moysa says personal data might also be collected for au- thorization and identification so that vehicle entry and operation could be accessed through a fob, biometric fingerprints or phone authorization. And the driver can be auto- matically logged into personal or entertainment or mail sys- tems that tie all of the driver's systems from home and the car together. Biometric systems in the car might also include sensors and monitors aimed at drivers to gauge their heart rate and alert- ness level. The car could then have all that information stored in its available memory, recording where the driver has been and when, as well as the driver's indi- vidual preferences. "[T]hat's a lot of data in the aggregate to collect about one person. And not only is your car collecting that data with you, it would potentially be sharing parts of that with other cars and with other parts of the naviga- tion infrastructure," says Moysa. Driverless cars are currently being tested in some areas, in- cluding Ontario, and are con- stantly being enhanced with increased functionality and au- tomation. The expectation is that com- panies will look to monetize on all that navigation and prefer- ence information. They may adopt strategies used for home- based systems on the new mo- bile platform, such as providing suggestions on places to visit and goods and services to purchase. "When organizations are requesting an individual's con- sent, we think they need to do a better job of explaining what they propose to do with, in this case, drivers' personal informa- tion," Therrien wrote in a sub- mission to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications. "Historically, dense, legalis- tic privacy policies that often go unread by consumers have been the main instrument for com- municating privacy practices. This has, unsurprisingly, proven ineffective. It is therefore impor- tant to find means to improve communications." Therrien suggests a summary of the personal information col- lected by a driverless vehicle, along with potential third-party providers that might also have access, should be made available prior to purchase or lease. He points at the use of data to calculate car insurance pre- miums and associated finan- cial risks as an example of what should be communicated dur- ing the time of sign-up and when decisions are being made. An explanation of how to de- lete data collected in a rental car when the driver's phone is paired with the car's Bluetooth system is another example he provided. One of the challenges about driverless cars and privacy rights that Kirsten Thompson, a part- ner in McCarthy Tétrault LLP's national technology group, sees is geographic borders and hav- ing manufacturers adhere to different pieces of legislation in different jurisdictions in the ab- sence of standardized laws. Cars are built around the world and not necessarily just for one par- ticular market such as Canada, she says. Then there's the issue of the customer not knowing about all the issues. "Cars, personal assistants, all those things are just Hoovering up all the information that you generate," says Thompson, who is leader of her firm's national cybersecurity, privacy and data management group. People often don't really con- sider what their personal infor- mation is beyond their phone and email address, she says. Drafting a consent statement for the manufacturer explaining what is being collected and how FOCUS Medico/Legal Your case is too important. 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