Last updated: 04.08.2026

Distance Technologies Oy operates engineering vehicles on public roads. We use them to collect real-world data for computer vision and perception research, development and testing.

Everyday traffic is difficult to model in a laboratory. Glare, snow, rain, faded lane markings, roadworks, cyclists partly hidden by vehicles, pedestrians in low light and unusual traffic layouts all create situations that perception systems need to understand. Real-world testing helps us find limitations, measure progress and improve the technology before it is used more widely.

We also recognise that people moving through public spaces do not expect to become the focus of data collection. Our vehicles may incidentally record people, vehicles and licence plates, so we limit how the data is used, restrict access, avoid identifying members of the public, and provide this notice so people can understand what we do and how to contact us.

This notice explains what our vehicles may record, why we collect the data, how we use and protect it, how long we keep it, and how to contact us.

Who is responsible for the data?

Distance Technologies Oy is the data controller and responsible for this data collection.

Business ID: 3410188-9 

Address: John Stenbergin ranta 2, 00530 Helsinki, Finland 

Privacy contact: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Distance Technologies Oy decides the purposes and means of this public-road sensor data collection.

Where and when do we collect data?

Our engineering vehicles may collect data on public roads and in other publicly accessible traffic environments where we test, evaluate or validate our technology.

The vehicle is driven by a human driver. The recording system collects data for engineering purposes and does not control the vehicle.

Recording is not always active. In some tests, sensors are used only for live engineering evaluation and no sensor data is stored. When recording is active, it may continue for several hours or be started for a specific test situation.

Our vehicles are marked with information about the data collection, including a short web address, QR code and privacy contact address.

What do our vehicles collect?

Our engineering vehicles currently use the following sensors:

• RGB cameras
• infrared cameras
• LiDAR
• GNSS
• IMU
• wheel odometry
• vehicle telemetry

These sensors may record the road environment, including roads, traffic signs, buildings, pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, drivers, passengers, licence plates, location, time and vehicle movement.

The data may include images, sensor readings or metadata from which people, vehicles, licence plates, places or movements are directly or indirectly identifiable through licence plates, places, times or movement information. Raw sensor data may be used to generate depth maps, point clouds and segmentation images.

We do not currently use microphones and do not intentionally record audio during public-road data collection.

If we introduce in-cabin microphones or voice-annotation features in the future, they will be intended for engineering observations by vehicle occupants, such as test drivers or operators. We will update this notice and provide separate information to affected vehicle occupants before using such features.

In-cabin sensors

Some engineering vehicles may also use inward-facing sensors for driver-monitoring, safety, usability, research or testing purposes. These sensors are directed primarily at vehicle occupants, not people outside the vehicle.

Vehicle occupants, such as employees, contractors, test drivers, passengers or demo participants, receive separate information where in-cabin data is collected from them.

Why do we collect this data?

We collect and use public-road sensor data to build, test and improve computer vision and perception technology and related products, systems and applications.

Typical technical uses include:

• driver-assistance technology
• vehicle-safety technology
• sensor evaluation
• computer-vision and perception research
• machine-learning training and evaluation
• simulation
• regression testing
• benchmarking
• safety validation
• engineering demonstrations using reviewed or anonymised material

This may include work on lane detection, traffic-participant detection, lead-vehicle detection, depth estimation, semantic segmentation, free-space detection, ego-vehicle localisation, short-term object tracking within a single recording sequence, simulation, validation and machine-learning training.

Real-world public-road data helps us evaluate how our technology performs in different lighting, weather, traffic and road conditions. For some development and safety-validation purposes, raw sensor fidelity is necessary because altering identifiable features in the source data can affect how a perception model learns or behaves and may reduce the reliability of testing.

If we intend to process personal data for a materially different purpose, we will provide information about that purpose and any other relevant matters before starting the further processing.

We do not use public-road sensor data to make decisions about identifiable individuals based solely on automated processing that produce legal effects or similarly significant effects for them.

Legal basis

We process public-road sensor data based on our legitimate interest in developing, testing and validating computer vision and perception technology. This includes the development and validation of safety-critical vehicle applications.

We do not use the data for facial recognition, biometric identification or to identify vehicle owners from licence plates. The tracking function does not create persistent identifiers intended to link people or vehicles across separate recordings or test drives, and we do not profile named members of the public.

However, raw sensor data may incidentally contain identifiable people, vehicles, licence plates, locations, times and movement information.

If you can be identified from the recorded data, you have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interest on grounds relating to your particular situation. We will assess objection requests case by case, taking into account the nature of the data, our purpose, technical feasibility, legal requirements, safety-validation needs, and the rights and freedoms of others. We will stop processing the personal data concerned unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Risks and safeguards

Public-road recordings may incidentally capture people in everyday or sensitive contexts, such as near homes, workplaces, healthcare facilities, schools, places of worship or other locations that may reveal information about a person’s private life.

We reduce these risks by:

• not recording audio
• not using facial recognition or biometric identification
• not using licence-plate recognition to identify vehicle owners or drivers
• restricting access to authorised personnel
• applying confidentiality obligations to employees and approved contractors
• using technical and organisational security controls
• limiting demo and marketing use
• reviewing data before external disclosure
• applying retention limits
• periodically reviewing whether retained datasets are still needed

Who can access the data?

Access is limited to authorised Distance Technologies employees and approved contractors who need the data for engineering, testing, security, legal, compliance or operational purposes.

Approved contractors may access data only under our instructions and confidentiality obligations.

We may use service providers to store or process data on our behalf. These include cloud infrastructure providers such as Google Cloud Platform. 

We do not sell public-road sensor data about bystanders. We do not provide raw public-road sensor data to customers or research partners.

Where is the data stored and processed?

Data may be stored locally on the engineering vehicle, in Distance Technologies-controlled local systems, and in Google Cloud Platform.

Raw public-road sensor data stored in Google Cloud Storage is hosted in the europe-west4 region in the Netherlands. Where additional computing capacity is required, Distance may process the data using Google Compute Engine in another region located within the EU.

Google Cloud and its subprocessors may process data in other countries where this is permitted under applicable data protection law and contractual transfer safeguards. If personal data is transferred outside the European Economic Area, we use appropriate legal safeguards, such as applicable Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission, adequacy arrangements or other safeguards required by data protection law.

How do we protect the data?

We use technical and organisational measures designed to protect public-road sensor data against unauthorised access, loss, misuse or disclosure.

These measures include, where applicable:

• access control based on role and need
• encryption in transit
• encryption at rest where technically available
• access logging
• internal confidentiality obligations
• contractor confidentiality obligations
• controlled data export processes
• review before external disclosure
• deletion or retention-review processes
• separation between raw data, selected engineering datasets and demo material

How long do we keep the data?

We keep personal data only as long as needed for the purposes described in this notice.

Our retention periods depend on the type of data and its purpose:

• Live sensor data that is not stored is not retained after the test session.
• Raw unselected public-road recordings are normally deleted or selected for further use within 60 days.
• Selected engineering datasets may be retained for up to 3 years where needed for research and development, machine-learning training, testing, validation, debugging or reproducibility.
• Some selected benchmark, KPI, regression or safety-validation datasets may require extended retention for as long as they remain necessary for stable testing, historical performance comparison, reproducibility or safety validation. These datasets may need to preserve raw or near-raw sensor fidelity because modifying images or sensor data can affect computer-vision and perception-system behaviour. Long-term benchmark and KPI datasets are subject to documented selection, access restrictions, periodic necessity review, and privacy-reduction measures where feasible without invalidating the purpose of the dataset.
• Processed, anonymised or aggregate data may be retained for longer where individuals are no longer reasonably identifiable.
• Data relevant to a legal claim, regulatory inquiry, security incident or safety investigation may be retained for as long as needed for that purpose.

We periodically review whether retained datasets are still needed. We delete, anonymise, replace or further restrict retained datasets when they are no longer necessary for the purposes described above.

Demo, marketing and external disclosure

We do not use identifiable raw public-road footage for public demo, marketing, publication or external presentation purposes unless it has first been reviewed and processed so that people and licence plates are not reasonably identifiable.

Internal technical demonstrations may use raw or partially processed data only where access is limited to authorised personnel with a need to know.

Your rights

Depending on the situation, you may have the right to:

• request information about how your personal data is processed
• request access to your personal data
• request deletion
• object to processing based on legitimate interest
• request restriction of processing
• request correction of inaccurate personal data

Because our vehicles record public-road environments and usually do not know the identity of people captured, we may need enough information to search for relevant data. Useful information may include:

• approximate date
• approximate time
• location
• direction of travel
• Distance Technologies vehicle details, if visible
• a description of the situation
• a photo of the vehicle or scene, if you have one

We do not require more identifying information than is necessary to handle the request.

In some cases, we may not be able to locate the relevant data, or we may not be able to provide a copy if doing so would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of other people. For example, other people or licence plates may need to be blurred before data can be provided.

To contact us or exercise your rights, email:

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You also have the right to lodge a complaint to the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman if you believe your personal data is processed unlawfully.

Changes to this notice

We may update this notice from time to time, for example if our sensors, data uses, retention periods, service providers, safeguards or contact details change.

The latest version will be available on this page.