As Ford prepares to launch a new generation of connected cars, the automaker is making a public promise about how it will handle that information. <\/p>\n
The company unveiled on Monday what it calls a \u201cprivacy promise\u201d \u2014 an \u201cexplicit commitment\u201d to keep customers\u2019 vehicle data safe and give them control over what they share. Ford also launched a website designed to educate customers about how, where, and why the automaker uses their data, and to show them how to change those settings.<\/p>\n
While those controls have existed for years now, Ford wants to communicate more clearly with its customers about them, especially ahead of the launch of new, more connected vehicles like the ones being built on its upcoming \u201cuniversal electric vehicle\u201d platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cI personally think that it\u2019s super important for us to be making it very clear to our customers what our data practices are, and not only that, but making a commitment to them about it,\u201d Ford\u2019s chief privacy officer Kristin Jones said in an interview with TechCrunch. \u201cI also see this as a great opportunity to educate our customers about how they share data.\u201d<\/p>\n
This new privacy push comes as automakers are making their cars increasingly connected. While some polling shows U.S. customers want the kinds of features enabled by this connectivity, such as remote start, navigation, and driver-assistance software, only 14% said they fully understand what data their vehicle collects.<\/p>\n
That has left room for some companies to quietly sell that data to third parties \u2014 a practice that got General Motors in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission, and also resulted in a $220 million settlement with 36 states last week.<\/p>\n
This lack of consumer awareness around data collection and sharing has also opened the door for other companies to market themselves as better stewards of customer data. Slate Auto, the EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has made that pitch ahead of the expected launch of its minimalist pickup truck later this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did a survey of 1,000 consumers, and 91% of them said that data privacy was a key consideration for them. Realistically, it\u2019s not something they engage with every day, but they want to know that they\u2019re, again, in control, and that they have access to the information they need there,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t comment on what our competitors are doing, or anything that\u2019s sort of been in the news there, but certainly it\u2019s something that people don\u2019t trust companies to take care with their data, and we really want to make sure we\u2019re building that trust relationship with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones, who joined Ford in 2024 after nearly two decades of working on privacy in the legal, financial, and healthcare fields, said the effort to improve how the automaker communicates with customers about data sharing has been in the works for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a journey for, frankly, most of the time I\u2019ve been at Ford,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Ford\u2019s new website will feature a mix of content that explains what data the company collects, how it uses that information, and how customers can opt in or out. <\/p>\n
Opting out of sharing some data will naturally make some modern features inaccessible, Jones said. For example, turning off \u201cconnected services\u201d in a Ford vehicle will disable features like real-time navigation and the built-in access to roadside assistance.<\/p>\n
But one of the goals of this \u201cprivacy promise\u201d push is to better justify why Ford is asking for access to this data and make it clear that the information won\u2019t be used for purposes such as targeted advertising.<\/p>\n
Giving Ford access to data about a vehicle\u2019s health, for instance, will provide an owner with better real-time information about whether their car needs maintenance. But it will also \u201csupport research and development for future technologies,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also do not share information about how our customers are driving their vehicles to data brokers,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI just want to kind of reiterate that we\u2019re not in it to try and monetize data in some way. We\u2019re trying to offer products and services that customers derive value from.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/ford-blue-cruise.jpeg?resize=1200,900″] As Ford prepares to launch a new generation of connected cars, the automaker is making a public promise about how it will handle that information. The company unveiled on Monday what it calls a \u201cprivacy promise\u201d \u2014 an \u201cexplicit commitment\u201d to keep customers\u2019 vehicle data safe and give them control over what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,62],"class_list":["post-2234941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-techcrunch-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2234941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2234941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2234941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2234941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}