Fleet Tracking Data

Wisdom of the Crowd

Response #1:

That might be a hard pill to swallow for a lot of customers, especially if it's data about their assets. I don't know anything specific about the fleet industry, but if this is getting a lot of pushback, consider tackling as a license back for the desired purposes. That could achieve your goals without the open-ended concern that the customer has no control over this data - I would assume it could be competitively sensitive and they wouldn't want to let someone else own and be able to exploit it without limitation.¹

 

Response #2:

The question is can you tie the locations of the vehicles at any time to the user? If so, that could be a huge privacy concern.²

 

Response #3:

The previous response said "The question is can you tie the locations of the vehicles at any time to the user? If so, that could be a huge privacy concern." Do you mean for the company or the drivers? There are companies who use this type of data to track their employees for efficiency or other reasons, and sometimes have turned up inappropriate use of company vehicles in the process.

 

But you are correct: If anybody could drive any vehicle at any time, and all that is known is that Car 54 is lost, there would have to be other records consulted to know that Toody and Muldoon were driving at the time. If the original questioner's company has only the vehicle data and not individual PII, the question takes on a different cast. Companies may agree to let his company own vehicle-related data but not PII, unless he can show that they have other safeguards in place.³

 

Response #4:

The previous responses raised a good point. What it really comes down to is what is the purpose of collecting the data and disclosing why you are collecting it. Also, how specific you are getting with the locations. I think

that it would make sense that you'd want to know if Car54 was at the corner of Main and Any Street for the purposes of tracking assets.⁴

 

Response #5:

If you can tie the use of a particular vehicle to a particular employee or individual, there are a host of privacy questions that can arise. Back in 2008, as part of an ACC Annual Meeting program on Employee Monitoring, myself and other speakers touched upon the issue as there is state case law on the issue.⁵

 

Response #6:

I haven't looked into this beyond the following article but it at least suggests that the Driver Privacy Act of 2015 indicates the data belongs to the owner or lessee of the vehicle.⁶