Ford is making a public commitment about vehicle data before it ships the cars that will collect much more of it. The company on Monday unveiled what it calls a privacy promise, an explicit commitment to keep customers’ vehicle data safe and give them control over what they share, alongside a new website explaining what data it collects, how it uses it, and how to change the settings. The controls themselves have existed for years; what is new is the promise and the effort to explain it ahead of vehicles built on Ford’s upcoming universal electric vehicle platform.
Chief privacy officer Kristin Jones told TechCrunch the push rests on a comprehension gap. Polling cited by the company suggests US customers want the features connectivity enables, such as remote start, navigation and driver assistance, while only 14 percent say they fully understand what data their vehicle collects. In Ford’s own survey of 1,000 consumers, 91 percent said data privacy was a key consideration. Jones was explicit about the line Ford says it will not cross: the company does not share information about how customers are driving to data brokers, and is not trying to monetise the data.
The contrast case is recent and expensive. General Motors’ sale of driver data drew Federal Trade Commission action and a 220 million dollar settlement with 36 states last week, a story this beat covered on October 30. EV startup Slate Auto has been marketing itself on the same restraint. Ford’s trade off is stated plainly in its own materials: turning off connected services disables features such as real time navigation and built in roadside assistance, and vehicle health data shared with Ford feeds both owner maintenance alerts and the company’s research and development.
A promise is not an audit, and Ford’s wording will be tested by what its settings actually do once the new platform reaches customers. But the direction of travel in auto data is now set by enforcement and settlements, and the second largest US automaker has chosen to compete on the point rather than stay quiet.