New Technologies
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Other newer technologies may be included or available as an option in your next car.
■■Location Information – The location of your vehicle and your destination may
be collected by your navigation and related systems in order to route you to
your destination.
■■External Information – Modern vehicles may contain cameras and sensors that
are used to gather information about your car’s immediate surroundings. These
sensors can detect road or weather conditions, lane markings and obstacles,
surrounding traffic, and more. Key technologies that rely on this external
environmental information include blind spot detection, lane-departure warnings,
assisted braking, and rear-parking detection.
■■In-Cabin Information – Many of today’s vehicles also contain sensors in the
vehicle cabin. Microphones, cameras, and other devices may record information
about vehicle occupants. These sensors may be required to communicate with
emergency services or to utilize features such as hand-free telephone use.
■■User Recognition – Some systems recognize users by physical characteristics such
as a fingerprint or face, and therefore may have physical, or biometric, information
about users. Biometric information can also be used to determine who is behind
the wheel and adjust systems accordingly. For example, rather than requiring that
you press a seat position button, the seat may adjust automatically after your face
is recognized by a sensor located in the vehicle. These technologies can also track
eye movement to detect a driver’s attention in order to determine if a driver is
falling asleep behind the wheel.
■■Apps – Your vehicle may include interfaces with third-party systems like Apple
CarPlay, Android Auto, or other services. Your vehicle may also allow an interface
between the applications on your phone and your vehicle. Be aware that if you
enable apps provided through these interfaces or use apps on your phone that
interact with your car you may be exposing data from your car to those third party
app providers. These providers have their own policies about what information
they gather and what they do with that information. Consult their privacy policies
for further information.
■■Other – Vehicle manufacturers and their technology partners are constantly
updating and improving your automobile. The sensors, features, and data
gathered today are likely to be much different tomorrow. Make sure you work
with your dealer to fully understand your car’s features, and the data it gathers to
provide them.