Security Innovation, Key Contributor to Privacy Standards for Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications, Applauds U.S. DOT Decision to Move Forward with "Talking Cars" Program

WILMINGTON, MA--Feb. 5, 2014: Dr. William Whyte, principal advisor of the US DOT-sponsored VII Proof of Concept project for secure vehicle communications, is proud to have played a part in developing the technology behind Monday’s announcement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology for light vehicles. The technology will improve safety by allowing vehicles to "talk" to each other and avoid collisions by exchanging data such as speed and position hundreds of times per second.

“We are thrilled that the US Government has taken this bold step to significantly reduce fatalities and serious injury through the adoption of robust technology”

Before this life-saving technology can be widely adopted, it has to be reliable and secure. As co-author of the IEEE 1609.2 standard for connected vehicle security, Dr. Whyte and his team have been working within the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) community to ensure privacy and security are guaranteed and that communication between vehicles cannot be maliciously altered or used to track driver behavior or location. “We are thrilled that the US Government has taken this bold step to significantly reduce fatalities and serious injury through the adoption of robust technology,” said Dr. Whyte. “With this announcement, Security Innovation will accelerate our collaboration with chip designers, wireless providers, on-board equipment manufacturers, infrastructure providers and car makers to ensure that security and privacy remain the number one priority.”

US DOT research indicates that safety applications using V2V technology can reduce the majority of crashes, with survivability improvements expected to be even greater than from the introduction of seatbelts. When widely deployed, secure vehicle communications could prevent 80% of unimpaired driver accidents. Additionally, a recent DOT safety pilot program concluded that V2V standards and technologies are mature enough to work in full-scale production. Security Innovation's AeroLink™ secure communications product was a key element in this success.

As an active and influential practitioner in this field, Security Innovation's understanding of the technical specifications and interoperability required to provide highly secure platforms for V2V will help improve automobile safety worldwide. The company does this through independent research and as a contributing member to organizations such as ITS America, OmniAir, ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), CAMP (Collision Avoidance Metrics Partnership), and the European Car2Car Consortium.