Data sharing and faulty navigation question.

[Dozerhand]

Hi gang. First post. I'm 3 months into a 2024 non sasquach, hi lux badlands. I've read lots of concern with information my bronco shares with ford and possibly by extension my insurance company. I travel a lot of 2 lane country roads. Here in illinois unmarked country roads have a 55 mph speed limit. My display on the dash says I'm in a 30mph zone. My question is does ford think I'm routinely driving 55-60 in a 30? I don't think my insurance would like that info. Anyone else encounter this?

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[flip]

No. This is an arbitrary geo located info they put into the nav system at the factory and has nothing to do with the road signs. I-69 through Bloomington recently changed from 55 to 65 and info screen still shows 55. Having said that, Ford/Lincoln does have some speed sign recognition software in specific vehicles, just not the bronco as of now.

The reports of snitching is a completely different issue Ford was stupid enough to even think about doing. Whether it's just them trying to patent any and all mobile tech either by design or mechanical is one thing, application is another.

As it stands now, if you get into a crash and a DA wants your data they have to get a court order and have a restraint control module removed and sent to Ford's office of general council to have the data at time of crash pulled. With the connected vehicles my suspicion is they are already collecting snapshot and other data which you unknowingly agreed to buried in the terms of service. I can't verify this but if they are, at some point we'll hear about a subpoena and either they'll cough up what they have and we'll all find out or they'll defend it like Apple does their phone encryption.

One defense of the idea of info sharing would be in the cases of people who use snapshot, non Ford telematics or other stuff that plugs into the DCL. You could agree to "share" that data with the specific company via Ford. We've seen issues with some of these PID devices causing issues with vehicles however I doubt that was the main motivator Ford used in forming this plan. Another is expanding the ability of the telematics to help locate stolen vehicles or notify owners of a break in. The only way proactive snitching is going to be legally possible is if the .gov mandates it but by then we're going to have bigger problems. The more they force manufacturers to open their data up to 3rd parties the greater the chance black hats are going to exploit it. One thing locking a computer sitting on your desk, quite another bricking one going 75mph on the highway.

 

[Brian_B]

I don't know how the Bronco does it specifically, I have the dumb version so I don't have personal experience with it.

But, we do have GPS monitors in work trucks, and they do snitch on our drivers, and our internal safety department is extremely vigilant in tracking and responding to events. So I do have some experience with insurance snitching.

Bronco knows the speed limit via one of two ways - there is an internal GPS database (with the Nav system I assume, but I don't actually know), and some trims (maybe just lux?) can actually read street signs and update in the event the internal GPS database is off . But I don't think that gets recorded. My wife's Sport can do both, so I assume the big Bronco can too - but I don't actually know that - my Big Bend is factory dumb and has no idea what the speed limit it (or if it does, it isn't telling me).

The GPS monitor, and I presume the Bronco crash recorder data - do record your location, speed, ABS activity (hard acceleration/hard stops), and probably a few other data points (like airbag deployed, etc).

They take the speed and GPS data and bounce that against their own database to see what they think the speed limit in that area should be.

We get false positives all the time, where people will be driving the posted speed limit, but the insurance company GPS database is out of date - and sometimes (not often) we have to submit a geotagged photo of the speed limit sign to refute the claim of speeding.

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