Waymo autonomous vehicle data retention — 75 petabytes of driving footage with faces
Date: 2024-07
Affected: Waymo — pedestrians and drivers captured by autonomous vehicle cameras
Attack vector: privacy-violation
Category: real-world
Severity: High

CPRA and GDPR investigations revealed Waymo retained over 75 petabytes of driving footage containing identifiable faces, licence plates, and behavioural patterns of non-consenting pedestrians and drivers. The data was used for model training without individual consent. Multiple jurisdictions questioned whether the legitimate interest basis was sufficient for continuous biometric data collection at this scale.

Impact: Multi-jurisdictional regulatory investigations; precedent for biometric AI data collection; privacy class action risk

Mitigations:
Data minimisation with automatic face/plate blurring before storage
Retention policies with automatic deletion schedules for training data
Consent framework for biometric data collection at scale
Data sovereignty controls for cross-border transfer of biometric data

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):
label: Data Operations
notes: Massive biometric data collection from public spaces without individual consent
role: origin
label: Security & Compliance
notes: Multi-jurisdictional regulatory investigations (CPRA, GDPR)
role: impact
label: Deployment & Infrastructure
notes: Data retained indefinitely across global infrastructure
role: propagation