Location Tracking

[nashbrydges]

Hello @Ford of Canada, can you explain to us why you need to enable location tracking to "always on" for PaaK to work? Explain to me how you knowing my location at whatever interval suits your fancy makes the app any better? The app connects via bluetooth or wifi/cell data. So does the car. So, how exactly does my location play into this for any reason other than you snooping and tracking my every move?

Btw, no, I will not send you a DM. Companies are always reticent of these conversations in public so you either are willing to have this convo openly and try to pretend like location is actually necessary, or you can just not reply. Neither will be a good look for you but please go ahead and try. I mean you already track my vehicle's every location, now you want to know MY personal location?

Of course, some on here will say that I should just stop using the functionality or shut up and enable tracking. If that's your view, you're welcome to it. I instead choose to question its necessity.

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[RickMachE]

You are under the misconception that any Ford social media representative is going to answer a specific question like this. Not going to happen.

 

[nashbrydges]

You are under the misconception that any Ford social media representative is going to answer a specific question like this. Not going to happen.

That's totally expected. I'm under no delusion of a specific response, that's for sure lol

 

[generaltso]

You are under the misconception that any Ford social media representative is going to answer a specific question like this. Not going to happen.

Especially an account that has posted zero messages here to date. If it was @Ford Motor Company , we know they would ask for a VIN and dealer location to “look into” this concern (which would be useless). We don’t know yet if @Ford of Canada will even do that much.

 

[Mike G]

I'm sure you read the privacy statements that go along with FordPass and Connected Services. If not you should.

Limiting certain functionality by requiring owners to use the FP app, just so they can collect and sell analytical data is pretty cheesy. As is putting Alexa into Sync so Amazon will know where you are as well. The 'value-add' to the consumer is far less than the potential profits made by collecting all that data and selling it (even if it's anonymized).

I knew before I took delivery of my '21 Job 1 that the 'plan' to intentionally only provide one key fob so if there were two drivers...somebody would have to use PAAK, was a blatant "Cha-Ching" cash-in on Ford's part.

And on the privacy front...was that the reason that the EU forced Ford to issue a second key fob instead of using 1+PAAK? That's what I heard, but I don't live in the EU so I don't know for sure.

There was a '60 Minutes' segment called "In China, and electric car lifestyle" that was highlighting how a Chinese startup was competing with Tesla. In the segment there was an interview that showed a big screen with a map, and I think it was Beijing, and the person being interviewed said that all the moving dots on the screen were all Teslas. And each one of them could be identified in real time. I know that wasn't the point of that part of the interview but I was blown away by the fact that they actually showed proof that the government could track you in real time....because your car was sending the 'mothership' all this data, all the time.

It's been said before, but bears repeating. Privacy is dead.

Mike

 

[Jiji]

It isn’t needed, just ignore the FordPass nag and leave location tracking off.

My iPhone settings and the nag you can ignore. You certainly need Bluetooth and Background App Refresh is on since I run FordPass once and never see it again. I think I have the Cellular Data option on for remote unlocking but I don't think it is used for PaaK.

 

[DevSecOps]

In order for Bluetooth to work it has to have location permissions in older versions of phone operating systems (older as in last year). This is a requirement on the OS level of the phone. PaaK uses Bluetooth in order to communicate with the car and provide the security key needed to perform PaaK functions.

In more recent versions of OS' the location feature isn't required but since this application is likely developed for older versions of OS' the requirement is still prompting. COVID changed how applications use location because of the need for contact tracing using bluetooth scanning. I assume that in the future FP will remove this requirement as they can use either function based on the OS level. It doesn't mean that Ford is tracking you.

Also however, within FP there's options for charging locations and map functions, both of which would require location access.

Depending on your OS, you could reject access to location and PaaK might still work, but charging locations and map functions would not. As an example Android 6 through 11 PaaK will not work without location. Android 12+ PaaK will work without location.

 

[Logal727]

Imagine thinking Ford wants to track you everywhere you go

 

[JoeDimwit]

Imagine thinking Ford wants to track you everywhere you go

It’s not that ford wants to track us everywhere we go, but advertisers want more data to better target their advertising spending. Ford is 100% selling that data to market research firms for profit.

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