Toyota Motor North America Introduces Privacy Portal to Make Consumer Data More Accessible and Transparent

Toyota looks to real consumer feedback and insight to develop a solution that provides consumers with clarity, context and flexibility around their connected vehicle data

Privacy Portal debuts in the Toyota and Lexus Apps

As a demonstration of Toyota’s continued commitment and leadership in consumer privacy, Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) is proud to announce the creation of the Toyota Data Privacy Portal to increase data transparency, accessibility and control for Toyota and Lexus vehicle owners.

Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) announces the creation of the Toyota Data Privacy Portal to increase data transparency, accessibility and control for Toyota and Lexus vehicle owners.

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Toyota has played an instrumental role in automotive privacy, most notably with its industry leadership and involvement in the development and adoption of the Automotive Consumer Privacy Protection Principles in 2014. These principles, submitted by Toyota and 19 other automakers to the Federal Trade Commission at the time of release, established a set of baseline protections for personal information collected through in-car technologies.

“Toyota strictly adheres to the Automotive Consumer Privacy Protection Principles we’ve established in partnership with 19 other automakers,” said Zack Hicks, executive vice president and chief digital officer at TMNA. “Part of that commitment is transparency around the collection and processing of connected vehicle data. We are proud to further enhance our level of transparency with the release of Data Privacy Portal, giving consumers a clear sense of when and how their data is used.”

Identifying What Consumers Crave

Building upon its commitment to privacy, TMNA conducted an extensive, cross-industry survey to gather insights about what consumers look for regarding privacy.

The results of the survey demonstrated the pressing need for clear, simple and transparent descriptions of the personal data collected from consumers and their connected vehicles, as well as how this personal data will be used to provide their connected services and applications within their vehicles – without the use of long-form responses in legalese and technical jargon. Consumers want this communicated to them in a way they can easily understand, so they can make an informed decision about how their personal data is used.

To further build on its efforts to address this need, Toyota created Data Privacy Portal to give consumers a clear understanding and control over how their personal data is used – including providing options to share data where it benefits them, while making it easy to de-enroll should they choose. Data Privacy Portal informs users when an impactful change has been made to their privacy settings.

“Ensuring the treatment of personal data is secure, transparent and consistent with the ‘Respect for People’ pillar of The Toyota Way is a top priority for Toyota as it continues its transformation from an automobile company to a mobility company,” said Steve Basra, group vice president of Connected Technologies, TMNA.

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How It Works

Data Portal can be accessed for Connected Services-capable vehicles, starting from model year 2013, through the “account settings” section of the Toyota and Lexus apps. If the user owns multiple Toyota or Lexus vehicles, they can select custom privacy and data sharing settings for each individual vehicle. If a consumer shares data with a third party, such as an insurance company, they can also see all of their data-sharing settings for these services within the application.

For those users who want to know more about the privacy settings and data sharing for each individual application from Toyota and Lexus and their partners, they can select their own custom privacy settings. If a user opts out of data sharing that will impact a specific service, they will receive a warning message letting them know exactly how this decision impacts their current services and subscriptions.

Alternatively, for those who want a quick and easy way to allow all data sharing, there is a Connected Services Master Data Consent option that enables accessing all the connected technologies as simple as the press of a button.

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