Google's self-driving cars may be an exciting innovation to many, but to others they are just disasters waiting to happen, and would best be banned from the streets. From the latter category, people against the project, a privacy group has asked the California Assembly to keep Google's self-driving cars off the road.
A non-profit privacy group called Consumer Watchdog has sent an open letter to the California Assembly on Thursday, May 31, asking members to toss bill SB 1289, which would allow Google's self-driving cars on California roads, unless the bill is modified to ensure "adequate" privacy protection for the cars' users. In addition, the open letter also urges legislators to ban all data collection from Google's self-driving cars.
Data Collection & Retention
"While we don't propose to limit the ability of the cars to function by communicating as necessary with satellites and other devices, the collection and retention of data for marketing and other purposes should be banned," wrote Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court, and privacy project director John Simpson, as cited by PCWorld. "Unless the bill is amended, once again society will be forced to play catch-up in dealing with the impact of the privacy invading aspects of a new technology."
Earlier this month, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles was the first to grant Google a license for self-driving cars. According to the Nevada DMV Web site, it was also the first autonomous vehicle license ever issued in the U.S.
"The cars have a number of sensors, such as camera, lasers and radar, to monitor road conditions and improve the technology," Google spokesman Chris Gaither told Computerworld. "For our testing purposes, the cars log data about their performance - how fast they're going, where they are, where they detect obstacles, etc. - as well as data from the equipment on the car."
Gaither could not say what, or if, data would still be collected from the autonomous cars once testing is over and they are sold commercially. "It would be premature to speculate," said the spokesman. According to Gaither, Google's self-driving cars have travelled more than 200,000 miles so far.
In an effort to further develop the futuristic vehicles, Google executives went to Detroit last month looking for partners that would back up the project. Speaking to an audience in Detroit, Anthony Levandowski, Google's head of self-driving car project, said the company would like to get its autonomous cars on the road within the next decade, Computerworld reported last month. At the time, a company spokesman told Computerworld that Google has been reaching out to automakers, but is keeping an open mind in regards to its options.
