Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, PRIVACY NEWS: FTC states support for NHTSA’s commitment to privacy, (Oct 24, 2014)

By Greg Hammond, J.D.

The FTC has filed a comment on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) notice of proposed rulemaking regarding vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, commending NHTSA’s commitment to promoting safety technology and protecting individual privacy.

According to the Commission’s comment, the NHTSA intends to establish a rule that would: (1) require V2V communication capability for passenger cars and light truck vehicles by 2019, and (2) create minimum performance requirements for V2V devices and messages. The information collected would be processed and used to generate safety warnings for drivers. However, in response to consumers’ concerns regarding privacy and the information the V2V device collects, the NHTSA has proposed a number of responses that the FTC fully supports. Specifically, the NHTSA proposes: (1) the implementation of a deliberative, process-based approach to address privacy and security risks; (2) a V2V system that limits the amount of data collected and stored to only information necessary for safety purposes; and (3) other security measures, including not connecting the V2V device to other onboard computers so that hackers will be unable to gain access to those computers.

"The Commission supports NHTSA’s commitment to the principle that any regulation of V2V technologies should ‘both protect[] individual privacy and promote[] this important safety technology’ and be rooted in the framework of the Fair Information Practice Principles," the Commission stated.

News: Privacy FederalTradeCommissionNews