(March 12, 2014) SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Department of Motor Vehicles must enact regulations that protect users' privacy in new regulations it is drafting that would cover Google's driverless cars and other "autonomous vehicles" traveling on California's highways, Consumer Watchdog told the DMV on March 11.

"The DMV regulations must give the user control over what data is gathered and how the information will be used," said John M. Simpson, Privacy Project director.

"The DMV's autonomous vehicle regulations must provide that driverless cars gather only the data necessary to operate the vehicle and retain that data only as long as necessary for the vehicle's operation. The regulations should provide that the data must not be used for any additional purpose such as marketing or advertising without the consumer's explicit opt-in consent."

The company probably most directly affected by the new autonomous vehicle regulations will be Google, which is pioneering development of the robot-driven cars. The Internet giant was the driving force behind SB 1298, which charged the DMV with the task of developing the regulations and also rebuffed attempts to require privacy protections in the law.

"However, it is not too late to implement privacy safeguards in this rule-making and Consumer Watchdog calls on the DMV to do so," said Simpson. "Failure to act will mean substantial privacy risks from the manufacturers' driverless car technology if there are not protections from what Google is best known for: the collection and use of voluminous personal information about us and our movements."

Simpson spoke at a workshop at DMV Headquarters to discuss development of regulations for autonomous vehicles, popularly known as driverless cars.