Sustainable Data Governance for Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility in the European Union

The article focuses on the issue of data governance in connected vehicles through a novel analysis of current legal frameworks in the European Union. The analysis of relevant legislation, judicial decisions, and doctrines is supplemented by discussions relating to associated sustainability issues. Relevant notions of autonomous vehicles are analyzed, and a respective legal framework is introduced. Although fully automated vehicles are a matter for the future, the time to regulate is now. The European Union aims to create cooperative, connected, and automated mobility based on cooperation between different interconnected types of machinery. The essence of the system is data flow, as data governance in connected vehicles is one of the most intensively discussed themes nowadays. This triggers a need to analyze relevant legal frameworks in connection with fundamental rights and freedoms. Replacing human decision-making with artificial intelligence has the capacity to erode long-held and protected social and cultural values, such as the autonomy of individuals as has already been in evidence in legislation. Finally, the article deals with the issue of responsibility and liability of different actors involved in processing personal data according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applied to the environment of connected and automated vehicle (CAV) smart infrastructure. Based on a definition and analysis of three model situations, we point out that in several cases of processing personal data within the CAV, it proves extremely demanding to determine the liable entity, due to the functional and relatively broad interpretation of the concept of joint controllers, in terms of the possibility of converging decisions on the purposes and means of processing within the vehicles discussed.