This week, Maine voters overwhelmingly approved a law requiring automakers to make the data your car stores available to independent repair shops. With 95% of votes counted, the Associated Press reports that 84.3% of Maine voters have approved the referendum.
The move comes three years after Massachusetts passed a similar law, triggering a dispute with the federal government over data privacy and whether today’s increasingly complicated cars are vulnerable to computer hackers.
What Is Right to Repair?
If you own a car less than ten years old, it probably records data about your driving.
The auto industry calls driving data “telematics.” It’s helpful to mechanics because it includes performance data that can be used to diagnose mechanical problems.
Related: What Is Telematics?
Many cars store telematics data onboard and have for more than a decade. But today’s cars increasingly maintain connections to the internet even while driving. Some broadcast that data back to automakers’ servers through always-on mobile connections.
Some automakers can even send over-the-air (OTA) software updates to correct problems remotely.
Repair shops can use the data to diagnose problems. But they need access to the data to do that.
Maine’s law requires automakers to standardize the data and allow owners and independent repair shops to access it.
Automakers Opposed the Law
Parts of the automotive industry have been locked in a long-running dispute over how that data should be encoded and who should have access to it.
A trade group representing the automakers (the Alliance for Automotive Innovation) and two representing repair shops (the Automotive Service Association and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists) agreed on data sharing earlier this year.
The Alliance opposed the Maine law because the existing agreement did enough.
“Automotive right-to-repair already exists. Mainers can get their vehicle repaired anywhere, anytime, anyplace,” says alliance CEO John Bozzella.
However, industry publication Automotive News explains critics say that the agreement “lacks enforcement measures and does not give vehicle owners or aftermarket companies direct access to wirelessly generated repair and maintenance data.”
The Portland Press Herald explains that Maine’s law creates those enforcement measures. The law “will require manufacturers to give vehicle owners and independent shops the same access to their diagnostic tools that they give to their authorized repair shops” and dealers. The data “will then be compiled into a secure, standardized access platform by an oversight board” appointed by the state’s attorney general.
Feds Have Privacy Concerns
When Massachusetts passed a right-to-repair law, the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) initially told automakers not to comply.
The agency was concerned that the data could be available to hackers. “A malicious actor here or abroad could utilize such open access to remotely command vehicles to operate dangerously,” the agency warned.
Related: Cars of the Future Will Likely Be More Vulnerable to Hacking
NHTSA later dropped its objections, telling automakers they could comply with the law through short-range wireless communications that were less vulnerable.
Privacy researchers have recently raised concerns about how automakers secure owner data.
What’s Next?
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey will create an oversight board to craft the rules for data sharing.
But the dispute over the law is likely just beginning. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation has sued in federal court to block the Massachusetts law. The group argues that the Massachusetts law conflicts with federal data privacy laws.
That lawsuit remains in process after three years. The group may do the same with Maine’s law.
Meanwhile, right-to-repair advocates advocate for a federal law addressing the issue. Automotive News reports that several groups instead “are backing efforts by Congress to pass federal legislation that they say addresses their concerns, specifically the Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair (REPAIR) and Save Money on Auto Repair Transportation (SMART) acts.”
