Remote Repossession

Abstract

Ford’s February 2023 patent application raises a new possibility: that after a default, an internet-connected vehicle might autonomously drive itself off of the owner’s premises—to a public space, to the repossession agency, or even to a junkyard. But while this “remote repossession” would minimize the risks of harm that attend in-person repossessions, it creates at least three new risks. First, a danger of bodily injury and property damage to the owner. Second, an increased likelihood of physical harm to a third-party with no obviously responsible entity. And third, most invisibly but also perhaps most importantly: further erosion of consumers’ current structural rights—which might include a right against intrusions, a right to a certain amount of due process and human engagement before a repossession, and a right to be free from foreseeable harms associated with corporate remote interference.

I employ a “techlaw methodology” to explore what legal changes would better protect us—as potential defaulting owners, as possibly harmed third-parties, and as consumers who must increasingly rely on corporations to take reasonable care when engaging in digital self-help.

Keywords: technology law, torts, repossession, automated decisionmaking, corporate interference, torts, contract, property