Ottawa, Ontario – As the Your Data. Your Choice movement gains momentum across North America, the Automotive Industries Association of Canada (AIA Canada) is urging collision repairers to take action in the fight for access to vehicle data.
During Tuesday’s Your Data. Your Choice webinar session, J.F. Champagne, AIA Canada president and Bill Hanvey, CEO of the U.S.-based Auto Care Association, delved into details of the campaign and provided an update on its progress as collision repairers across North America fight for access to vehicle data.
“Of course, we all like the convenience technology brings, but 85 percent of vehicle owners are unaware the vehicles transmit data and that access to that data is being threatened,” said Hanvey.
Within the next two years, AIA Canada predicts up to 95 percent of all new cars sold in Canada will be connected cars—vehicles that are constantly communicating information in real time to automakers. According to Hanvey, automakers in the U.S. have spent US$30 million defending OEM control of data in the courts.
“Unless automakers are forced by regulations, they aren’t going to release that control,” said Champagne.
“We’ve tried—and quite honestly, we haven’t been taken seriously. The only way to rectify this is through legislation,” said Hanvey. “We need the petition signatures to say, ‘look, the consumers have spoken’ with 100,000 signatures in Canada and 150,000 in the U.S.”
Automaker resistance is nothing new to the collision repair industry. While the sector has been reliant on on-board diagnostics for repairs since the 1980s, there was a time the automaker fought for repairer access to these systems.
“We need to fix cars right. Access to the right information in an orderly fashion is no question—the access to vehicle data absolutely ties into the quality of collision repair,” said Champagne.
There are three actions AIA Canada urges industry members to take: become informed, take the pledge and sign the petition.
More information on the Your Data. Your Choice campaign can be found here.
