Vehicle Data Sharing appears to be opt-out, not opt-in. They do say "If you’d like to ensure you’re not sharing data, check Vehicle Connectivity in your Settings menu in-vehicle and toggle it off." After doing that, someone should check to see if the wireless modem is still emitting.
[1] https://www.ford.com/data-and-privacy/manage-your-settings/c...
First thing it told me when I was setting up the customization area was something around ...if you enable BMW account sync, this car will transmit all audio, video and any other data recorded to BMW for its use blah blah...
Ugh
Super creepy.
So the right answer is to leave the data collection mechanisms entirely disabled until the customer enables a feature that requires it, enable only the data collection mechanisms required by that feature, and disable them again -and purge all data collected by them- when the feature is disabled.
The physical modules that collect this data and transmit this data should be easily removable by the customer, for those who know that they will never want those features to be provided by their car.
The odds that this is what Ford is doing -at least in the US- are 0%.
No, our data is barely even safe with ourselves. It's definitely not safe with anyone else!
How much is the first 3 years of maintenance worth?
Its nice knowing the doors are actually locked when you issue a remote unlock and then lock command when a friend is trying to grab something and you didn't want to handle the logistics of them getting to you to get the keys to get to the car and then back to you. Or making sure you really did lock it when you walked away.
It's nice knowing the state of charge while the car is on the charger and get that data somewhat live while it's charging and you're in a restaurant or whatever.
It's nice having the last known location on a map when you're trying to find the car in a maze of a parking lot and it turns out it wasn't parked in lot H row 72 like you thought you remembered.
It's nice starting the AC or heat well before you get to the car and are far out of range of the key remote.
There's a lot of telemetry that's kind of nice to have, assuming you can have control over it and who it's shared with. It's not nice having it shared without your consent and potentially used against you.
It was a terrible experience compared to being able to issue the command from anywhere. I can be in the middle of a shopping mall and start having the car cool down well before I get there, while before I'd practically have to already be on the right floor of the parking garage.
But yes, generally speaking and replying to your original question of "requires telemetry to remotely access certain features on their car", yes it takes some kind of access to telemetry data to access telemetry data. The whole feature is access to telemetry data in the end, presented in useful ways. Whether Ford uses some kind of homomorphic encryption to handle that data or sets up end to end encryption between your phone and the data receiver from the car or allows you to configure third party telemetry retrieval services is a whole different question to ask.
It'd be lovely if other automakers followed suit, but I wouldn't actually bet on Ford keeping its Promise.
Q: "Does Ford sell customer data about your personal vehicle's driving behavior to data brokers or insurance companies?"
A: No
Again: I don't know how much I trust them, and when I get a new car I'll probably be doing some research to see which ones will still run after I physically disconnect the wireless modem, but they DO answer that question
It is literally one of the few specific questions they address:
"Does Ford sell customer data about your personal vehicle's driving behavior to data brokers or insurance companies?" And their answer was one word.