Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fourth sitting)

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Baker]

At last it seems that it was worth studying for that MSc in computer science, not because we shall discuss formal specification using Object-Z, or the state of communicating sequential processes, and not even because of implementation languages, emulation and testing, but because I think it would be appropriate to replace the term “operating system” in clause 4 with the single word “software”. All the amendments in the group are intended to do that.

I should like briefly to elaborate on what I said on Second Reading, to explain why these amendments are necessary to achieve the purpose of the Bill. In the explanatory notes, clause 4 is described very simply:

“This clause ensures that insurers should not have to bear liability to the insured person in some situations where the vehicle’s software or operating system are altered, or not updated.”

That is the purpose of the clause, but subsection (1) refers to

“alterations to the vehicle’s operating system made by the insured person, or with the insured person’s knowledge, that are prohibited under the policy…a failure to install software updates to the vehicle’s operating system”.

I should like to make briefly and, I hope, engagingly the case that that is drafted too narrowly and that, to achieve the purpose of the Bill if it were tested in court, we need to simplify it and use the term “software”.

The “Oxford Dictionary of Computing” defines “operating system” as:

“The set of software products that jointly controls the system resources and the processes using these resources on a computer system.”

That refers to the software that controls the hardware and makes it available to other programs. Opposition Members have gamely tabled amendment 20, which would delete “vehicle’s operating system” and insert

“application software related to the vehicle’s automated function”.

There is great merit in what they are trying to do. Again, the dictionary defines “an applications program” as:

“Any program that is specific to the particular role that a given computer performs within a given organization”—

it is talking about business, rather than cars—

“and makes a direct contribution to performing that role.”

Just as I said on Second Reading, it would technically be the application software that did the automated driving in such cars. I therefore fear that if the Government and the Committee were to keep the definition used throughout clause 4 and specify the term “operating systems”, we could find that an unintended conclusion was reached if it was necessary to test the law in court after an accident.

The solution is simple. The “Oxford Dictionary of Computing” defines software as:

“A generic term for those components of a computer system that are intangible rather than physical.”

I propose in amendment 8 that

“‘software’ in relation to an insured vehicle…means those components of the vehicle’s computer system that are intangible rather than physical, however stored.”

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his dissertation on software systems, but can he advise me? We want to avoid the problem that we were talking about earlier in trying to define what might happen in the future. New software systems might be created that were unknown at the beginning and software—malware, for example—that was never conceived of when the operating system was developed might be added and somehow find its way into the computer systems of an automated vehicle. Under my hon. Friend’s amendment, how would those adaptations, legal or otherwise, or those new types of software be handled?

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for extending my remarks with his question. The reason why I have included “however stored” is to distinguish software stored in volatile memory from software stored in non-volatile memory, such as a USB key, and to include the firmware used to start up the low-level devices. The term “software” as I have defined it from the “Oxford Dictionary of Computing” is all-encompassing; it includes everything in the computer system that is intangible rather than physical. To answer his question directly, that definition encompasses all the software in the system however it might arise, so it is the maximal definition.

If we go back to making the legislative definition work, what I propose in amendment 1 is to leave out “operating system” and insert “software”. Amendment 2 would delete “’s operating system”, because that phrase is otiose, as a colleague said earlier. Clause 4 would simply read “a failure to install software updates to the vehicle”. I am trying to make this maximal to ensure that the Bill is absolutely clear that all the software in the system must be untampered with and up to date.