On 6 August 2017, the UK government released ‘The Key Principles of Vehicle Cyber Security for Connected and Automated Vehicles’, guidance aimed at ensuring minimum cybersecurity protections for consumers in the manufacture and operation of connected and automated vehicles.

Connected and automated vehicles fall into the category of so-called ‘smart cars’. Connected vehicles have gained, and will continue to gain, adoption in the market and, indeed, are expected to make up more than half of new vehicles by 2020. Such cars have the ability through the use of various technologies to communicate with the driver, other cars, application providers, traffic infrastructure and the Cloud. Automated vehicles, also known as autonomous vehicles, include self-driving features that allow the vehicle to control key functions–like observing the vehicle’s environment, steering, acceleration, parking, and lane changes–that traditionally have been performed by a human driver. Consumers in certain markets have been able to purchase vehicles with certain autonomous driving features for the past few years, and vehicle manufacturers have announced plans to enable vehicles to be fully self-driving under certain conditions, in the near future.

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