UNECE task force puts software identification numbers on the agenda for R156

The agenda for the 39th session of the UNECE cybersecurity and over-the-air updates task force was filed to the WP.29 document register on July 31, setting out the amendment tracks the group will take up when it meets by web conference on September 3.

Four items stand out. The task force will consider proposals to amend UN R155, the cybersecurity regulation, to address multistage vehicles, separate technical units and component approval, along with remote operation for automated driving systems. It will review the cyber and software requirements written into the automated driving systems regulation. It will take up the application of RXSWIN, the software identification number, to UN R156, the software update regulation. And it will address administrative provisions in both regulations covering which type approval authority handles cybersecurity and software update management system certificates, and which issues approvals for vehicle types otherwise out of scope.

The session feeds the next meeting of GRVA, the working party on automated and connected vehicles, in September.

None of this is decided. An agenda names the questions rather than the answers, and task force proposals travel a long way before they reach a supplement to a regulation. The direction it points is nonetheless legible: R155 and R156 were written around the vehicle manufacturer, and the work now under way asks how far down the supply chain those obligations reach.