As cars become smarter and more connected, they’re also confronting a new threat — hacking. While business networks and home internet setups are protected behind passwords and firewalls, connected cars talking to smartphones need to evolve and become as secure.
Seeing this coming, Toyota used CES 2016 to announce next-generation connected vehicle framework with an eye toward greater convenience and increased data security.
Also: CES 2016: Ford Upping the Ante on Autonomous Vehicles
Toyota’s new connected vehicle framework will not include the installation of a Data Communication Module (DCM) in a broader range of vehicles starting with 2017 models.
Adding the DCM means connecting Toyota vehicles to cellular telecommunications networks, expanding the cars’ ability to transmit data for products and services.
Toyota will also use the DCMs to provide emergency notification systems as a standard feature in all cars when activated by airbag deployment in a traffic accident.
A more connected and constantly online car is also a car more vulnerable to cyber intrusion. So, Toyota will create a Toyota Big Data Center (TBDC) to analyze and process data collected by DCM and use it to deploy services under high-level information security and privacy controls.
Toyota is working with UIEvolution, a leading data collection and security firm to develop a smartphone app which uses vehicle data and provides it to third party service and app providers authorized by Toyota. That enables a customer’s smartphone to access vehicle data in a highly secure environment. Toyota can then offer customers safer and more secure smartphone-car connection services.
