Data Privacy and Automated Vehicles: Navigating the Privacy Continuum

Australia's information privacy framework fails to protect personal information contained within data generated by automated vehicles. Automated vehicles will increasingly store, share and broadcast data about the vehicle (and by implication the occupants) with rising levels of automation. Using data mining techniques, personal information contained within disparate data streams can be compiled to allow profiling of individuals to a high degree. Following the recent decision in Privacy Commissioner v Telstra Corporation Ltd ('Telstra'), Australian law does not recognise personal information unless contained within a single data stream and remains silent on how to identify personal information within data having multiple subject matters. This article argues that, post-Telstra, the privacy framework will not safeguard personal information contained within data produced by automated land vehicles.