Autonomous cars are on the horizon. Fortune magazine
has estimated that initial versions of these cars should be on the
road by 2020. By 2040, an estimated 95 per cent of new vehicles
sold will be fully autonomous. That's encouraging news for
safety advocates, as research undertaken by the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration in the United States has shown that
94 per cent of fatal car crashes can be attributed to human
error.
However, as autonomous car technology advances, privacy concerns
relating to these vehicles are also growing given that these cars
will be capable of recording a tremendous amount of data about (and
from) their users and the environment around them. For example,
autonomous vehicle sensors will likely include: a wheel encoder
sensor for monitoring the movements of the car; GPS for navigation;
cameras near the rear-view mirror for colour and other
identification; radar on the front and rear bumpers for identifying
traffic; lane
