Google’s driverless division Waymo has filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Motor Vehicles to keep driverless car crash data from being made public.

Website The Verge reports he autonomous vehicle operator, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, claims that such data should be considered a trade secret.

The report explains California’s DMV oversees the largest autonomous vehicle testing programme in the US, with more than 60 companies permitted to operate test vehicles on public roads. Only a handful are approved to operate fully autonomous vehicles without safety drivers at the wheel, and even fewer have been approved to deploy vehicles for commercial purposes.

It says Waymo is seeking to keep private information about how it handles certain autonomous vehicle emergencies, how it responds when its vehicles attempt to drive somewhere they are not intended to go, and how they handle steep hills or tight curves. The lawsuit, which was filed in Sacramento County Superior Court last week, argues that releasing this information to the public would put Waymo at a competitive disadvantage.

(Picture – Waymo Press Library)