Your Ford Mustang is watching you... no, just kidding!

A Ford executive backed off from claims he made in an interview that Ford collects GPS data on driving habits from their cars.

Ford Motor Co. marketing chief Jim Farley on Thursday apologized for a remark he made Wednesday saying the Dearborn automaker tracks customers through in-car navigation devices.

Farley, the headliner at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, said Ford knows where and when customers drive their vehicles, but does not sell that information to third parties.

"We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it," Farley said, according to a report in Business Insider. "We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone."

Ford on Thursday denounced those comments.

"Ford is absolutely committed to protecting our customers' privacy," company spokesman Wes Sherwood said. "We do not track our customers. No data is transmitted from the vehicle without the customer's express consent."

Customers give consent when they use a navigation or voice-activated system.

 Gotta love this. Farley tells the truth on Wednesday, Ford makes him lie about it on Friday. That's some pretty quick ass-covering there.

Yes, your in-dash GPS does transmit location data back to Ford AND back to Tom-Tom, every second. That's how they can tell what the traffic is like, they count the cars with GPS transmissions and see how fast they're going. Most cars have GPS so the prediciton ios pretty good. Your car also REMEMBERS every single input it receives every single second you're driving it, including speed, acceleration/braking, throttle position and etc. The GPS unit remembers routs etc, but the car's Engine Control Unit (ECU) independently remembers all that as well, even if you don't have a GPS in your vehicle. I've posted this many times now, it should be common knowledge.

Furthermore, we know that if you have SIRIUS radio, hands free phone or OnStar/Lowjack/what have you, your car can be p0wned remotely by anybody with computer skillz. Video of said p0wnage. Exploit in the wild, 100 cars disabled by remote control.

While I'm sure Ford doesn't have a Department of Eeeevile which tracks me day in and day out, and I'm sure that for legal purposes Ford's lawyers have made them remove all personally identifying information from the tracking data they do have... I'm also aware that somebody could change that with a few mouse clicks. It isn't that they -can't- track me personally, its that right now they're afraid to in case I might find out and sue them. For now. But they might get an offer from somebody that's so juicy they might change there minds, right?

But in addition to all that what-if and maybe stuff, there is an organization out there that can't be sued, and DOES track people individually. The NSA. They get all this data too, because it all travels on the cell network, and they record every frickin' packet for storage forever. Cell phones, GPS units, cars phoning home to Dearborn, they get it all.

So yeah, your Ford Mustang really is watching you. It knows when you are sleeping, it knows when you're awake, it knows if you've been bad or good. It knows when you've been parked at your mistresses' house instead of working late like you told the wife.

So be good. Or else.

The Phantom