Straight Talks: Data privacy and cybersecurity in the age of rolling smart devices

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970 to safeguard the environment against pollutants. The tidal wave of environmental regulations that followed impacted every industry in the United States, especially the automotive market. Decades later, organizations have internalized these regulations into their culture.

Today, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is driving a regulatory wave of similar scope, but now the need is to safeguard data against cyber attacks and privacy breaches. And once again, the automobile industry will feel the regulatory impact. Autonomous and connected cars are essentially “rolling smart devices,” and as they enter the mainstream in the EU and United States, automakers are increasingly reliant on data for safe, efficient vehicle operations. But security and privacy concerns and penalties for regulatory noncompliance demand that manufacturers review their policies — and perspectives — on data storage and use.

In this podcast, Tim Tobin and Winston Maxwell, partners at Hogan Lovells, discuss how cybersecurity, data privacy, and ownership concerns are influencing the development of connected cars and autonomous vehicles.