With Mark Zuckerberg in the hot seat for his testimony before Congress, Brian D. Wassom discussed the growing controversy surrounding data sharing in the automotive realm in an Automotive News article titled, "Facebook's privacy problem in the era of self-driving cars."
Wassom, a Warner Norcross + Judd partner and co-chair of the firm's Emerging Media and Technologies Practice Group, cautioned that data collected by one party is often shared with their downstream partners even though those partners may have no direct relationship with the user. Privacy is quickly lost.
"Manufacturers are collecting data from your use of the app, and there's a back channel going to somebody else you have no relationship with," he said. "It's not just the OEM. It'll be any one of hundreds of different suppliers or software authors—service providers that provided some sort of component that may violate privacy."
With autonomous cars poised to capture massive amounts of driver and vehicle data, companies may seek to capitalize on that data—perhaps violating privacy in the process. Zuckerberg's Capitol Hill appearance to discuss Facebook's data sharing practices could be a sign of things to come in the automotive arena.
Automotive News subscribers can read the full story HERE.
