MA Automakers Stall Right To Repair Reform After Running Ads Claiming Improved Repair Options Would Aid Sexual Predators

The auto industry in Massachusetts has successfully stalled consumer technology repair reform in the state, after repeatedly and falsely claiming that shoring up consumer repair options would be a massive boon to the state's sexual predators.

In late 2020, Massachusetts lawmakers (with overwhelming public support) passed an expansion of the state's right to repair" law. The original law was the first in the nation to be passed in 2013. The update dramatically improved it, requiring that as of this year, all new telematics-equipped vehicles be accessible via a standardized, transparent platform that allows owners and third-party repair shops to access vehicle data via a mobile device.

The goal: reduce repair monopolies, and make it cheaper and easier to get your vehicle repaired (with the added bonus of less environmental harm).

Mass. automakers immediately got to work trying to scare the press, public, and legislators away from the improvements by running ads claiming that the updated legislation would be a boon to sexual predators. They also filed suit under the banner of the inaccurately named Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which has stalled the bill from taking effect.

The Judge in the case has delayed any ruling for more than a year now, grinding voter-approved reform efforts to a halt. Right to repair advocates say they're sitting at a crossroads that could impact repair monopolies and consumers for years:

We're at a juncture in the road," Paul Roberts, founder of securepairs.org and editor of the Fight to Repair newsletter, told Grist. We're in the position of seeing independent auto repair go the way of TV and camera repair. Which is, they don't exist anymore."

Claims that thwarting repair monopolies will result in a steady parade of horribles is also a favorite pastime of companies like Apple, which managed to scuttle right to repair legislation in Nebraska by claiming it would have resulted in the state becoming a dangerous mecca for hackers."

In Mass., automotive industry lawyers have had success throwing any argument they can find at a wall and hoping it sticks (including that the law conflicts with federal environmental law). But their central rhetorical thrust has been that greater repair options and more transparency into how systems work will result in dangerous chaos. Kit Walsh at the EFF gracefully deconstructs that argument:

The Alliance's argument that increasing access to telematic data makes hacking more likely rests on the notion that secrecy is the best way to keep systems secure. But many cybersecurity experts believe this premise - known as security by obscurity" - is fundamentally flawed, says Kit Walsh, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy organization. When data systems data are kept secret from the public, Walsh says, you don't get the benefit of people smarter than you looking at them and finding vulnerabilities that you don't find yourself." Roberts of securepairs.org agrees, describing security by obscurity as a false premise."

After right to repair went mainstream over the last few years, companies eager to monopolize repair (John Deere, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, most medical equipment manufacturers) have sent their lawyers and hired rhetorical guns into overdrive. As a result, many state efforts on this front have been weakened or killed, as we just witnessed in New York State.

Automakers envision a future in which the only repair option you have is costly dealership repair that provides zero transparency into how the increasingly complicated cars you own actually work. Despite some notable progress in the movement by reformers, there's still a very real possibility that vision becomes a uniform reality across the board.