UK Government Lays Out Regulatory Pathway For Self-Driving Vehicles In New Policy Paper

• Published date: 02 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Privacy, Technology, Data Protection, Privacy Protection, New Technology
• Law Firm: Preiskel & Co
• Author: Jose Saras and Xavier Prida

The new legislative framework is aimed at fostering the government's ambition to capture a 6% share of the AV market by 2035 which the (DfT) has estimated could be worth upwards of '41.7 billion.

Background

On 19 August 2022 the government published a policy paper entitled 'Responsible Innovation in Automated Vehicles.' The paper put forward recommendations to support the Department for Transport's (DfT) roadmap for developing a legislative framework for Automated Vehicles (AVs). This updated regulatory framework will need to take account of the ramifications that AV technology is going to have on data privacy, data sharing and fairness principle (i.e., how the processing may affect the individuals concerned).

Data Privacy

AVs collect and process vast quantities of data from their surrounding environments. This has significant privacy implications regarding the transfer of personal data. Under UK Data Protection law, controllers are required to have a lawful basis for data processing. This is normally founded on an individual's consent in the context of goods and services.

Although the user of the AV can consent to their personal data being processed, AVs are required to process personal data in a way that oftentimes bypasses the explicit consent of other road users. For example, some AV companies have explored using the biometric data of other road users. This has included facial recognition and 'gaze detection' technologies which are used to predict the intentions of other road users.

Without prior consent, the use of these technologies would only be lawful if they satisfied the 'legitimate interests' basis of UK GDPR (the retained EU law version of the GDPR). Given the ambiguity that exists over this matter, the government paper has recommended that the AV regulators provide clarity over whether the processing of personal data of individuals outside of the AV is considered lawful under Article 6 of UK GDPR.

Fairness Principle

All data driven technologies have the potential for various forms of algorithmic bias. Facial recognition technologies are already well known for their issues relating to protected characteristics like race.

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