If there is any depiction of a dystopian future that should be treated as a warning, there would be nothing better than the 2002 Sci-Fi film "Minority Report."
In this film, Tom Cruise heads a special Washington, D.C.-area police force in 2054, where humans with the ability to envision the future help apprehend suspected killers before they commit a crime.
It's a crazy movie, and without providing any spoilers, it is easy to see how a system like this has gaping holes.
Surveillance by government agencies is very real. A great example is demonstrated across the five boroughs of the City of New York, where over 18,000 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras record and collect data to assist the NYPD in its policing.
However, a new patent filed by Ford (F) with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveals that the police may soon benefit from another tool in its vast technological arsenal that may help enforce a kind of crime that is all too prevalent out on roads and highways across America.
Ford
The Ford "Snitch Interceptor"
According to a July 18 filing by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Ford has developed a new patented technology to help the police enforce a very common driving infraction: speeding.
Dubbed officially as “Systems and Methods for Detecting Speeding Violations," Ford's system would use the onboard sensors installed onto future Ford vehicles to detect other vehicles on the road that are actively breaking the speed limit.
In practice, Ford vehicles equipped with the systems would turn on cameras to capture the offending car. The Ford's computer would then send pictures of the offending car, its GPS location data and other useful information straight to the authorities.
With this information, the police could make the choice to initiate a chase or pursue the offending car.
A legal and ethical nightmare
Though this technology remains solely as a patent, police departments and local law enforcement agencies already use many questionable methods to enforce driving infractions, such as speed cameras, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane cameras, and red light cameras.
Ford is already the leader in police cars, with over half of them on American streets bearing the famous Blue Oval.
However, the new Ford tech calls into question the kind of tech that is capturing our data and likenesses and reopens a can of worms that had the attention of politicians in Washington: connected car data.
Although the patented technology uses the data it collects from its cameras and sensors for functions that operate inside the car, the data that can be used outside the car can be a wildly different story in today's connected car reality.
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According to a report by The New York Times, automakers like Ford and Kia have been found to sell data on driving habits to data brokers such as LexisNexis and Verisk. These brokers can then sell that data to insurance companies, who may be incentivized to raise your rates when they find that you have a heavy right foot.
Additionally, a September 2023 report from the Mozilla Foundation's Privacy Not Included series revealed that automakers can collect way more information than just driving habits, such as facial geometric features, behavioral characteristics, biological characteristics, sex life or sexual orientation information, sexual activity, genetic data, religion or creed, and philosophical beliefs.
As part of an investigation triggered by Mozilla's findings, the office of Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent letters in December 2023 to 14 automakers, including Ford, urging them to implement and enforce stronger privacy protections in their vehicles and asking questions about their data practices.
In response, Ford said that it gives its customers the choice of whether they want to share connected vehicle data with the automaker. They claim that customers can turn off vehicle connectivity entirely or restrict sharing vehicle data, driving data, and/or location data with the automaker, adding that its customers cannot use applications or services that rely on such data if it is turned off.
The Ford Motor Company, which trades under the symbol (F) on the New York Stock Exchange, finished the day down 1.54%, trading at $10.84 at the closing bell.
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