Ford seems to be taking a lesson from rival General Motors, which recently faced legal trouble over how it handled customers’ driving data.
The automaker announced Monday a new initiative it’s calling the Ford Privacy Promise, which aims to give customers more transparency and control over the data collected by its increasingly connected vehicles.
As part of the initiative, Ford is promising not to sell information about how customers drive their vehicles to data brokers or insurance companies.
The announcement comes just days after GM agreed to pay $220 million to settle allegations brought by a coalition of 36 attorneys general that it illegally sold drivers’ personal information to third parties.
According to the attorneys general, GM sold driving behavior and location data to data brokers, which then sold the information to insurance companies.
The lawsuit alleged that GM enrolled millions of drivers in its Smart Driver program between 2016 and 2024. The program tracked drivers’ habits and was marketed as a tool to help them improve their driving safety. GM also told drivers their information would not be shared with insurers without their consent.
But according to a New York Times investigation, information about how often people drove, how frequently they braked or accelerated quickly, and whether they exceeded speed limits ended up in the hands of insurance companies, which in some cases used it to help determine customers’ rates.
“This agreement addresses Smart Driver, a product we ended in 2024, and reinforces steps we’ve taken to strengthen our privacy practices,” a GM spokesperson told Gizmodo in an emailed statement.
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