In the fall of 2018, legislation was introduced in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to expand the current Right to Repair law to require that owners have the ability to control the data being transmitted by their vehicle. The purpose of the new language is to ensure that vehicle owners – and not the manufacturer -- determine where mechanical repair data is sent, whether wirelessly or through a connected port such as the onboard diagnostics (OBD) port.
Currently, only the vehicle manufacturers have access to all of the data being produced by vehicles, whether it is through the telematics system or other advanced vehicle technologies.
While most commercial fleets have visibility into some of the information coming off of their assets, it is not always the case that they have access or control over that data. Furthermore, data security on embedded systems is not consistent across vehicle manufacturers, jeopardizing the availability of affordable diagnostic tools that need to interact with vehicle systems. This can also increase the vulnerability of commercial vehicles to malicious cyber attacks.
HDDA: Heavy Duty, a community of the Auto Care Association, is encouraging commercial fleets interested in securing the ownership, access and control of their data by secure measures to join the effort in Massachusetts on Right to Repair. Information can be found at www.massrighttorepair.org or by contacting Sheila Andrews of HDDA at [email protected].
