It is precisely this potential that gets critics on the scene. In order to prevent the total individual monitoring of motorists by the authorities, consumer advocates demand the greatest possible protection in terms of data storage and their utilization. “In our opinion, this clearly requires anonymization of the data so that it can not be assigned to specific drivers,” says a spokesman for the ADAC. This has been true for years for all data created in the car, for which the automobile club “modern protection, transparency towards consumers and fundamental data economy”.

But also environmental associations are criticizing. The German Environmental Assistance (DUH), for example, considers the adopted practice to be inadequate, because the data are initially collected for monitoring purposes only and so far it remains open who receives access to them and what consequences will be achieved if violations are detected. It also demands measurements of the actual fuel consumption as part of the type approval as well as official final measurements. In addition, the DUH is committed to ensuring that vehicle owners have access to the data in order to enforce their rights over the manufacturers in case of excessive overconsumption.