Mobility Data Guardian - Ensuring Digital Privacy in Connected Vehicles

Fair, consumer-friendly and independent access to vehicle data must be guaranteed so that new, innovative mobility options can emerge for consumers and drive forward the necessary mobility change. At the same time, data sovereignty of consumers must be preserved and supported. The measures proposed to date neglect these aspects for the digitalisation of mobility.

If users do not know to whom their data is flowing and for what purposes, they cannot make an informed – and thus sovereign – decision about whether and under what conditions they wish to share data. Consumers therefore need transparency and control over the whereabouts and use of the data they generate.

For this reason, the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V. – vzbv) is calling for the establishment of a “mobility data guardian”.

vzbv calls on the legislator:

• to counteract de facto data sovereignty by vehicle manufacturers with fair and consumer-friendly access to vehicle data,
• to return organisational and technical data sovereignty over vehicle-generated data to the vehicle users,
• to pursue the establishment of a “mobility data guardian” as set out in this paper in addition to a data trustee model.