As Ford prepares to roll out its next generation of highly connected vehicles, the legacy automaker is making a public pledge regarding how it handles, protects, and utilizes customer data.
The company officially unveiled what it is calling a “privacy promise”—an explicit commitment designed to keep customers’ vehicle data secure while offering them granular control over what information they choose to share. Alongside this policy commitment, Ford launched a dedicated educational website intended to explain clearly to consumers how, where, and why the company uses their vehicle data, complete with a walkthrough on how they can adjust their privacy settings.
While the underlying technical controls to manage data sharing have existed in Ford vehicles for years, the company recognizes a pressing communication gap. Executives want to speak more transparently with their customer base, particularly with a wave of advanced, hyper-connected vehicles on the horizon. These upcoming models include vehicles built on Ford’s highly anticipated “universal electric vehicle” platform, which relies heavily on constant data connectivity to function at its best.
“I personally think that it’s 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,” Ford’s chief privacy officer, Kristin Jones, said in an interview. “I also see this as a great opportunity to educate our customers about how they share data.”
This strategic privacy push arrives at a time when automakers are racing to integrate advanced digital ecosystems into their fleets. Although industry polling demonstrates that U.S. consumers strongly desire the features enabled by this level of connectivity—such as convenient remote start functions, real-time cloud navigation, and sophisticated driver-assistance software—there remains a profound knowledge gap among drivers. According to recent mobility data, nearly 72 percent of Americans expect their next vehicle to function seamlessly like a smartphone, yet only 14 percent claim they fully understand what specific data their vehicle actually collects behind the scenes.
This widespread lack of consumer awareness has historically left room for less scrupulous practices within the automotive sector. Some companies have quietly harvested and sold driver telemetry and location data to third-party data brokers. Such practices have recently backfired significantly on major industry players. General Motors, for instance, ran into severe regulatory trouble with the Federal Trade Commission and ultimately agreed to a staggering $220 million legal settlement with 36 states following investigations into the unauthorized sale of drivers’ private driving data.
The widespread consumer unease and lack of trust surrounding automotive data collection have also opened the door for new market entrants to position themselves as consumer-friendly alternatives. Slate Auto, an electric vehicle startup backed by tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, has made data privacy a cornerstone of its marketing pitch ahead of the anticipated commercial launch of its minimalist pickup truck later this year.
For Ford, capturing consumer trust requires directly addressing these industry-wide anxieties. Jones noted that internal research confirms how deeply consumers care about the issue, even if they do not want to micromanage their settings on a daily basis.
“We did a survey of 1,000 consumers, and 91% of them said that data privacy was a key consideration for them. Realistically, it’s not something they engage with every day, but they want to know that they’re, again, in control, and that they have access to the information they need there,” Jones explained. “I wouldn’t comment on what our competitors are doing, or anything that’s sort of been in the news there, but certainly it’s something that people don’t trust companies to take care with their data, and we really want to make sure we’re building that trust relationship with them.”
Jones joined Ford in 2024 after accumulating nearly two decades of specialized privacy experience across the legal, financial, and healthcare sectors. She noted that overhauling how the automaker communicates these intricate data practices to everyday drivers has been a gradual internal evolution.
“It’s been a journey for, frankly, most of the time I’ve been at Ford,” she said.
The newly launched website serves as an educational hub, featuring a comprehensive breakdown of the types of data the company collects, the specific operational ways that information is utilized, and clear instructions for customers wishing to opt in or out of specific data-sharing parameters.
However, Jones is quick to manage expectations regarding what happens when drivers choose to opt out of data sharing. Naturally, turning off certain tracking metrics will render specific modern features inaccessible. For instance, if a driver decides to completely disable “connected services” within their Ford vehicle, critical amenities such as real-time traffic navigation and built-in access to roadside assistance will no longer function properly.
A primary objective of the “privacy promise” initiative is to build a transparent justification for why Ford requests access to this information in the first place, while reassuring owners that the data will never be exploited for intrusive purposes like targeted advertising.
Granting Ford access to vehicle health telemetry, for example, directly benefits the owner by providing accurate, real-time diagnostics that indicate when maintenance or repairs are necessary. Beyond immediate vehicle upkeep, Jones noted that aggregated and anonymized data will also “support research and development for future technologies.”
“We also do not share information about how our customers are driving their vehicles to data brokers,” Jones emphasized. “I just want to kind of reiterate that we’re not in it to try and monetize data in some way. We’re trying to offer products and services that customers derive value from.”
