The W3C Security and Privacy Task Force will create policies for the automotive industry's Internet-connected cars

Jun 18, 2015 11:51 GMT  ·  By
W3C creates special group to deal with smart car security and privacy policies
   W3C creates special group to deal with smart car security and privacy policies

The Automotive Working Group, one of W3C's divisions tasked with creating Web standards for the automotive industry to use in their smart cars, has announced the creation of a special task force to deal with security and privacy-related issues.

Due to an increasing number of Internet-connected automobiles and the technological advances made in the field, the complexity level of the operations an on-board computer can deal with has slowly but surely grown in the past years.

From simple audio players and basic car utility controllers, on-board computers have gradually evolved and can now provide complex GPS instructions, run Internet connected applications, and even deal with private user information on a regular basis.

But in their quest to provide users with a richer and richer Web experience while in their cars, the automotive industry has ignored in some cases the users' security and privacy while surfing the Web from their vehicles, exposing them and their data to attackers who manage to access a car's on-board computer.

This issue has led the W3C Automotive Working Group, together with the Automotive and Web Platform Business Group, to create a separate division amongst their ranks, a Task Force as the W3C calls it, whose role is to handle the exploration and creation of dedicated security standards for technologies used inside Internet-connected cars.

"Many industry reports have confirmed that a significant majority of consumers want safe and secure access to the Web from their connected car. [...] We hear this need resonating loudly in the automotive industry," says the official announcement.

The Task Force will work inside the Automotive Working Group

The Task Force's activity will be mainly focused on security-related concerns, being entrusted to analyze and counteract potential attack vectors for the technologies currently being developed.

User privacy is also a point of interest, as the group has to take into account how technologies and standards handle user data, their privacy rights, and deal with opt-in sharing arrangements.

The W3C Security and Privacy Task Force for the Automotive Working Group has only been recently formed, so a call for experts has been issued for all interested parties to join before work gets under way.

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