A new proposal could let the federal government regulate all navigational applications such as Google Maps, according to reports.
The apps would be overseen and regulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to language in the Grow America Act, or "Generating Renewal, Opportunity, and Work with Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency, and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and Communities throughout America." Congress is supposed to soon look over the legislation that could greatly change how navigational apps look and work, according to InformationWeek.
The agency will oversee navigational apps whether embedded in a car dashboard or on a smart phone. This has lead to several critics from both the car and tech industry.
“They don’t have enough software engineers,” Catherine McCullough, executive director of the Intelligent Car Coalition, an industry group told the New York Times. “They don’t have the budget or the structure to oversee both Silicon Valley and the auto industry.”