Ford Escape: Data Privacy / Event Data

This vehicle is equipped with an event data recorder. The main purpose of an event data recorder is to record, in certain crash or near crash-like situations, such as an airbag deployment or hitting a road obstacle; this data will assist in understanding how a vehicle’s systems performed. The event data recorder is designed to record data related to vehicle dynamics and safety systems for a short period of time, typically 30 seconds or less.

The event data recorder in this vehicle is designed to record such data as:

• How various systems in your vehicle were operating.
• Whether or not the driver and passenger seatbelts were buckled/fastened.
• How far (if at all) the driver was depressing the accelerator and/or the brake pedal.
• How fast the vehicle was traveling.
• Where the driver was positioning the steering wheel.

This data can help provide a better understanding of the circumstances in which crashes and injuries occur.

Note: Event data recorder data is recorded by your vehicle only if a non-trivial crash situation occurs; no data is recorded by the event data recorder under normal driving conditions and no personal data or information (for example name, gender, age, and crash location) is recorded. However, parties, such as law enforcement, could combine the event data recorder data with the type of personally identifying data routinely acquired during a crash investigation.

To read data recorded by an event data recorder, special equipment is required, and access to the vehicle or the event data recorder is needed. In addition to the vehicle manufacturer, other parties, such as law enforcement, that have such special equipment, can read the information if they have access to the vehicle or the event data recorder.