Automakers Look To Neuter Maine ‘Right To Repair’ Bill Under The Pretense Of Privacy Concerns

Last November, Maine residents voted overwhelmingly (83 percent) to pass a new state right to repair law designed to make auto repairs easier and more affordable. More specifically, the law requires that automakers standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to those systems and mechanical datato consumers and third-party independent repair shops.

But as we've seen with other states that have passed right to reform laws (most notably New York), passing the law isn't the end of the story. Corporate lobbyists have had great success not just watering these laws down before passage, but after voters approve them.

In Maine, lawmakers have been trying to convince Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike to introduce new amendments modifying (read: weakening) Maine's law. While automakers and some lawmakers insist the point of the changes are to protect consumer privacy, right to repair advocates say the real point is to water the bill down to the point of near-uselessness:

[This amendment] would allow automakers and their dealers in Maine to create a monopoly on automotive repairs by severely restricting access to mechanical information and data needed by independent repair shops to fix the cars of their customers," the coalition said in a statement."

The original law mandates the creation of a new portal that car owners and independent mechanics can access to reset car security systems. Automakers must also create a motor vehicle telematics system notice" system informing new car owners how access will work. The bill also mandates that the AG create an oversight board to ensure automakers are complying with data share requests.

But automakers are now trying to claim that this new system would somehow be a threat to consumer privacy. So they've convinced some lawmakers to push for amendments that would eliminate the standardized database, and the oversight entity as part of a total rewrite of the bill:

With amendments introduced by Rep. Amanda Collamore, AIR-Pittsfield, the bill is effectively a rewrite of the existing right to repair law, without the requirements for an independent oversight entity, a standardized database platform, and equipment to track repair data going into the standardized platform that car manufacturers would need to install in cars sold in Maine moving forward."

Here's the thing: automakers demonstrably don't actually give a shit about consumer privacy. If you recall, a recent Mozilla study showcased how most modern vehicles are a privacy nightmare, collecting no limit of data on users (and their phones, when attached via Bluetooth). Without that collection being transparent with users, or that data being properly secured and encrypted by the manufacturers.

Most lawmakers couldn't care less about those privacy violations by automakers either, and are nowhere to be found when consumers demand reform or companies require oversight. Yet here they are suddenly professing a deep interest in consumer privacy, only after voters approve a law making vehicles easier to repair. Pushing changes activists don't like and voters didn't approve. Funny, that.

Companies that oppose right to repair have a very long history of hiding behind consumer safety and privacy issues when trying to defend their profitable repair monopolies. It's fairly standard operating procedure. In New York, that resulted in a bill with giant loopholes that exempted the biggest offenders. Hopefully Maine's right to repair law, the fourth in the country, doesn't suffer the same fate.