Page 26 - Cyber Warnings

use current location and planned route to identify additional information relevant to the trip,
including real-time traffic data, points-of-interest on or near the planned route; and to set routing
preferences, such as avoiding highways or toll roads.

Correlating location, destination, speed, and route data with additional information about the
passenger, and date and time of the trip would allow someone to get a picture of when, where
and how an individual travels, particularly if this information is stored or logged over some
period of time. This information may prove very beneficial for purposes of traffic planning,
reducing congestion and improving safety, but it also could be used for secondary marketing
purposes. However, viewing travel data and patterns over time may also enable one to deduce
other information about the owner or passengers, such as where they live and work as well as
locations like stores, restaurants and other establishments that they frequently visit.

The privacy risks associated with the collection of and access to location information raise both
individual personal and larger policy and societal concerns. On an individual basis, the
availability of location information “generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s
public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional,
religious, and sexual associations.” For example, accessing an individual’s historical location
and destination information would permit visibility to “trips the indisputably private nature of
which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the
abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-
the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and
on.” Even where location information does not reveal this type of private information, the ability
to identify the present location or historical travel patterns of a particular person make them
more susceptible to physical harm or stalking if the information is accessible to the wrong
person.

From a commercial perspective, location and destination information could provide valuable
marketing information to advertisers. Knowing where a person lives, works, and shops would
allow a business to infer information about income level and spending habits. One could
envision the tracking and storage of autonomous vehicle data to lead to lawsuits similar to those
filed against various internet advertising companies engaged in behavioral tracking using
cookies. There are various other implications of this data, ranging from providing customized
advertising using interfaces connected to the Internet in the a vehicle (on a dedicated screen,
through the car’s speakers or to mobile devices in the car) to specifically routing a vehicle to
expose a captive audience of passengers to certain businesses or destinations based on
personalized interests inferred from their individual data.

Perhaps the most fundamental question that needs to be considered is how the collection and
sharing of location data impacts the concept of an individual’s “reasonable expectation of
privacy,” which impacts both protections afforded by Fourth Amendment and the applicability of
privacy interests in tort law. Another factor that complicates the reasonable expectation of
privacy issue is the potential that location data from autonomous cars would be shared with third
parties, including the manufacturer or other service providers.
26 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine October 2016 Edition
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