On-Board Technology in Vehicles Becomes Latest Privacy Battlefield
More: On-Board Technology in Vehicles Becomes Latest Privacy Battlefield
As the nation and world struggle with ever-complex questions of privacy related to personal data mined from the Internet, Ford found itself trying to assure the public this week it doesn’t use on-board technology to spy on driver behavior.
Trying to put out a brush fire ignited by a Ford executive’s comment, the automaker said this week laws are needed to protect driver privacy in vehicles that can gather as much data as a smart phone.
Last week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Ford marketing head Jim Farley sparked a fury among privacy advocates. During a panel discussion he said, “We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you’re doing it.
“We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing. By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone.”
On Wednesday, Ford CEO Alan Mulally received a letter from Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, seeking more information on the data Ford collects and how it is used. In 2011 Franken proposed a law to protect the privacy of location data in mobile devices.
Mulally plans to respond to Franken by early February as requested.
“We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing. By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone.”
I don’t know why he said that, it’s complete bullshit. GPS services, even on built-in navigation, is provided by third party vendors. Garmin, Magellan and Sirius (which provides the navigation on Ford vehicles) provide the maps and location tracking.
GM has the OnStar service which tracks customer vehicles at their request. Ford does not offer a similar service.