White House officials meet with allies, industry on connected car risks

Leaders from the White House and State Department met with representatives from several major allied countries, the European Union and industry leaders Wednesday for what has been billed as the “first multinational meeting” to address the national security risks posed by connected cars.

Officials from Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, Spain, the U.K. and other countries, along with the European Union and United States, spoke about the data and cybersecurity risks inherent to connected vehicles, a State Department press release said. 

It is unclear which members of industry participated in the meeting and whether any specific automakers attended.

Participants agreed that connected cars are “emerging as a key node in critical infrastructure as they constantly connect with other vehicles, personal devices, telecommunications networks, the electric grid, and other infrastructure,” the release said.

“The United States and like-minded nations will explore options for advancing affirmative cybersecurity standards and coordinating other possible policy measures to mitigate risks,” it added.

The meeting comes on the heels of a March announcement from the Commerce Department that its Bureau of Industry and Security will propose new rules regulating connected cars and car parts manufactured abroad.

That announcement came in response to a White House directive calling connected cars “smart phones on wheels” and warning that they are “connected to our phones, to navigation systems, to critical infrastructure, and to the companies that made them.”

“Connected vehicles from China could collect sensitive data about our citizens and our infrastructure and send this data back to the People’s Republic of China,” the White House statement at the time said. “These vehicles could be remotely accessed or disabled.”

The Commerce Department’s work builds on a 2021 Biden administration executive order focused on how to protect Americans’ data from foreign adversaries. That order noted “the increased use in the United States of certain connected software applications” particularly from China.

Connected car manufacturers are also being scrutinized by senators concerned with how they compromise vehicle owners’ data privacy.

On July 26, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ed Markey (D-MA) sent Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan their second letter since late April calling for an agency investigation of what they called the industry’s poor data privacy practices.

Their letter asserted that automakers are selling millions of car owners’ private data, including their locations, to data brokers for pennies per car. The senators also said they found car manufacturers tricking consumers by obtaining their consent for the data sharing via deceptive design techniques known as dark patterns.