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Germany To Require 'Black Box' in Autonomous Cars (reuters.com)
Autonomous cars should be able to account for themselves, that's the thinking behind new legislation proposed by German's transport ministry. The country is planning new laws that require self-driving cars to include a black box, Reuters reports, similar to the flight recorder required on aircraft. From the report: The fatal crash of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S car in its Autopilot mode has increased the pressure on industry executives and regulators to ensure that automated driving technology can be deployed safely. Under the proposal from Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, drivers will not have to pay attention to traffic or concentrate on steering, but must remain seated at the wheel so they can intervene in the event of an emergency. Manufacturers will also be required to install a black box that records when the autopilot system was active, when the driver drove and when the system requested that the driver take over, according to the proposals. The draft is due to be sent to other ministries for approval this summer, a transport ministry spokesman said.
All cars should have black boxes.
I think that all if not most new cars do have data recorders (black boxes), the question is: What should these data recorders record, and who should have access to the recordings? There is a wide possible spectrum. I would tend to agree with you if we required storage of the last few minutes of mechanical parameters likely to indicate the cause of a crash and make this data only accessible via a court order. I would tend not to agree with you if the data recorders stored months of mechanical data, computer logs, GPS history of where the car has been, video and audio of the drivers actions and or if this data was routinely uploaded to the cloud with no restrictions on access or monetization.
If I have read access to all that, I'd gladly opt-in... (I really do want a record for my own personal reasons).