Autonomous Vehicles for Smart and Sustainable Cities: An In-Depth Exploration of Privacy and Cybersecurity Implications

TL;DR

This paper explores the privacy and cybersecurity challenges posed by autonomous vehicles in smart cities, reviewing global government efforts to mitigate these risks and emphasizing the importance of regulations and research collaborations.

Contribution

It provides an in-depth analysis of international government strategies addressing AV-related privacy and cybersecurity issues for sustainable urban development.

Findings

Governments mainly use regulations and guidelines for privacy risks.

Cybersecurity efforts focus on broad regulations and research collaborations.

Most policies are not specific to autonomous vehicles.

Abstract

Amidst rapid urban development, sustainable transportation solutions are required to meet the increasing demands for mobility whilst mitigating the potentially negative social, economic, and environmental impacts. This study analyses autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a potential transportation solution for smart and sustainable development. We identified privacy and cybersecurity risks of AVs as crucial to the development of smart and sustainable cities and examined the steps taken by governments around the world to address these risks. We highlight the literature that supports why AVs are essential for smart and sustainable development. We then identify the aspects of privacy and cybersecurity in AVs that are important for smart and sustainable development. Lastly, we review the efforts taken by federal governments in the US, the UK, China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, France, and the EU, and by US state governments to address AV-related privacy and cybersecurity risks in-depth. Overall, the actions taken by governments to address privacy risks are mainly in the form of regulations or voluntary guidelines. To address cybersecurity risks, governments have mostly resorted to regulations that are not specific to AVs and are conducting research and fostering research collaborations with the private sector.