EU: Public consultation on access to vehicle data, functions and resources

 

The EU Commission has started a public consultation on access to vehicle data, functions and resources.

In 2020, the Commission adopted the Data Strategy to make the most of industrial data’s innovation potential. The Commission proposal for the Data Act is the last major cross-sectoral legislative initiative in the context of the Data Strategy. It sets out the overall principles across all sectors for data access to connected products by users and third parties. It introduces in particular user rights to access and share data with third parties and compensation and contractual principles for business-to-business data exchange.

Access to vehicle data has been regulated at EU level since 2007 for repair data and on-board diagnostics (OBD) to ensure fair competition on the repair and maintenance aftermarket.  Since then, the market for connected vehicles has developed.

Connected vehicles make it possible to remotely access vehicle data. They also give remote access to functions (e.g. remote door unlocking for car sharing, launching diagnostic routines) and resources (e.g. displaying information on a vehicle’s dashboard). This remote access enables remote diagnostics, but also new aftermarket services such as mobility as a service or pay-as-you-drive insurance. The rise of electric vehicles will be accompanied by new digital services to facilitate the vehicle’s optimal integration with the electricity system, such as smart charging and bidirectional charging (vehicle to grid/home) that will require access to vehicle data and the Battery Management System by electricity market participants.

Access to data, functions and resources is crucial for the development of innovative data-driven mobility services. Public authorities also need access to data, functions and resources to perform their tasks, such as CO2 monitoring, ensuring compliance with pollutant emissions regulations or doing roadworthiness controls. However, today, according to the information the Commission has gathered, although vehicles generate huge amounts of data, the access to these data is limited and not standardised. At the same time, it is essential that access to vehicle data, functions and resources do not create new risks for cybersecurity, road safety, intellectual property or data protection.

The public consultation aims to answer the question how all this data generated by vehicles should be regulated in the future and how its regulation should be interrelated with other relevant EU pieces of legislation, such as the Data Act, the General Data Protection Regulation or the Motor Vehicles Block Exemption Regulation.

The public consultation can be accessed here.