Insurance representatives told California lawmakers Wednesday that access to data generated by autonomous vehicles will be key to their industry's ability to write policies and assess liability in the emerging market. Ryan Gammelgard, counsel for State Farm Insurance Company Inc., told the Senate Insurance Committee that underwriters are not seeking information "on every aspect of [a] vehicle." But they do want data that shows driverless-car technology "actually does what it advertises it's doing."
|Demand for data
"Data access is essential to develop proper pricing and underwriting of vehicles, critical for liability determinations and from the general public's perspective, important in determining the safety and reliability of the technology," Gammelgard said.
"In some situations there may have to be a determination of: Where does this vehicle go?" he added. "What is it allowed to do? There are going to be some challenges in terms of those issues and [asking]: Is there a way to still preserve those privacy rights while at the same time making sure that we can verify that the technology actually does what it advertises it's doing?"
That demand for data puts the industry at odds with some car manufacturers that fear the release, potentially through a hack, of trade secrets. Privacy advocates have also questioned whether such data collection, if shared with third parties, could hurt consumers.
The insurers' data pursuit may also run afoul of California's voter-approved car insurance law, which prohibits a driver's home address or driving destinations to be used as primary factors in setting rates.
|Highly sensitive data
"From a privacy perspective, recommending constant collection of data by private entities — especially without also mandating privacy protections and data restrictions — is bad policy in any context," Jamie Williams, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in November in response to proposed federal guidance on driverless car development. "But it is particularly problematic for connected or autonomous vehicles, which collect highly sensitive data, such as biometric data and location information."
Advocates on all sides of the issue agreed Wednesday that self-driving cars will not be commonplace on highways for decades.
Still, 26 companies have already received state permits to test early prototypes on California roads. One is Uber Technologies Inc., which, after initially halting its San Francisco-based testing in December due to a tiff with the California Department of Vehicles, submitted the necessary paperwork Wednesday to receive state authorization to operate two test vehicles.
Brian Soublet, the DMV's deputy director and chief counsel, also announced Wednesday that the state will issue a new round of proposed autonomous vehicle regulations this month with plans to have final deployment rules on the books by the end of the year.
|Can traditional cars safely co-exist with autonmous counterparts?
The flurry of activity has state lawmakers scrambling to figure out how to ensure traditional cars can safely co-exist with their autonomous counterparts. Although no directly related legislation has been introduced this year, lawmakers were eager to ask Wednesday who is responsible if a driverless car crashes.
"I think if you ask the [plaintiffs bar] they'll be suing everybody that they can because it's not going to be clear," said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California. "And to preserve their clients' rights, they probably will be filing under different theories of judicial negligence theory as well as the product liability theory, because they may not know."
Consumer advocates urged lawmakers not to alter California's car insurance rate-setting laws, consider a move to no-fault insurance or to enact manufacturer-immunity statutes.
"When their autonomous technologies fail, hardware and software manufacturers must be held strictly liable," said Harvey Rosenfield, founder of the public interest group Consumer Watchdog.
Cheryl Miller is a reporter at The Recorder. She can be reached at [email protected].
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Cheryl Miller
Cheryl Miller, based in Sacramento, covers the state legislature and emerging industries, including autonomous vehicles and marijuana. She authors the weekly cannabis newsletter Higher Law. Contact her at [email protected]. On Twitter: @CapitalAccounts
