Driverless vehicle in London, England. Source: gettyimages.comCars might not need drivers in the future, but they will need airliner-style ‘black boxes’ to record crash data and computer firewalls to prevent hacks, according to new standards from the U.K. government.

As self-driving vehicles are tested in four U.K. cities namely Greenwich in south-east London, Bristol, Coventry and Milton Keynes, the government's nonstatutory “code of practice” for testing automated vehicles addresses concerns that companies might use such cars' software to collect personal data or that hackers might take remote control of them. The Department for Transport published the code on July 19, reports Wall Street Journal.

The department requires self-driving cars to record data such as their speed, brake use and whether the car is operating in manual or automated mode. After an accident, testing organizations would have to provide the data to investigators to help them determine whether the driver or the software was controlling the vehicle, according to the code.

Data collected by the cars must have “appropriate levels of security built into them to manage any risk of unauthorized access,” the government’s document reportedly says. Cars have to obey all traffic laws, and a person must be on board to oversee the drive and take control if necessary.

The self-driving tests have been under way since February.

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