IT company HPE and Continental, best known for making tyres, have revealed a new blockchain-based trading platform for vehicle data to help car makers monetise data and tie in with emerging traffic warning systems and parking solutions. The data-sharing mechanism will also improve driver safety, the pair said at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona.
The blockchain platform will see participants continue to store data in their own data centres, and only share specific data sets upon purchase directly with the buyer. This approach gives data sovereignty to all participants in the ecosystem, said HPE, while at the same time providing a efficient and secure mechanism for monetising vehicle data.
The system, designed by HPE’s Pointnext unit and Continental’s Interior division, requests the driver’s say-so, in each case, and integrates a “consent management system” to opt-in or opt-out of sharing data. It is compliant with GDPR in Europe, and other data protection regulations in other countries, as well aswith the VDA NEVADA Share & Secure concept, developed by the German automotive industry to govern the secure transfer of vehicle data to third parties.
If the platform sees commercial deployment, car manufacturers and their partners will be able trade data to improve and make money from their digital offerings.
Continental described it as a mechanism to loosen a knotty data-sharing tangle for the car market. Helmut Matschi, member of the executive board at Continental’s interior division, said: “We are sure our platform cuts the Gordian knot of data sharing and data privacy. We invite car manufacturers globally to join our platform and collaboratively shape this quickly growing ecosystem.”
HPE and Continental will provide additional services to integrate vehicle data into car manufacturers’ back-end systems and services. In the end, multiple centralised and decentralised systems will interconnect, and bring new ways to make money from the data, HPE suggested.
Phil Davis, president of hybrid IT and chief sales officer at HPE, said: “Sharing vehicle data across vendors can solve some of the toughest traffic problems and improve driver experience by leveraging the power of swarm intelligence. With Continental, we provide the key to unlock the value of this data treasure, not by taking control of the data ourselves, but by giving control to the drivers and car manufacturers.”
HPE claimed positive feedback from car manufacturers to the platform. The platform is expected to be available later this year, they said.
