Week 9 blog Tausif

Week 9 Blog – Legal/Political Research & System Architecture Foundations

This week I shifted from technology research to the legal, political, and compliance requirements that affect VehicleGrid in Australia, New Zealand, and India. This included looking at privacy laws, geolocation tracking regulations, consumer protections, EV charging safety standards, and digital services compliance. I spent time mapping out how these rules impact our app features, especially data collection, location tracking, user permissions, and EV charger listings.

Through this research, I identified several key areas that will influence our development later. The Privacy Act 1988 (AUS), Privacy Act 2020 (NZ), and India's DPDP Act 2023 are relevant for handling user data and location permissions. EV charging standards and electrical safety guidelines affect how we display charging information. Laws that prevent misleading route suggestions, inaccurate range predictions, or faulty charger listings need to be considered. Platform and digital marketplace regulations are important if community charger sharing becomes a feature. AI ethics principles will guide how our optimization behaves.

At the same time, I began defining the technical design elements of the system. This included identifying the technological requirements such as the mobile frontend stack, backend architecture, database choices, and integration points. Using this research, I drafted the foundations of the system architecture and data communication flows. This early work formed the base of the final architecture section we completed later.

Overall, Week 9 was about bridging the gap between what the system must comply with legally and how the system must be structured technically. This work guided our design decisions and ensured that the architecture we build next trimester is aligned with global standards and safe implementation practices.