Repair, diagnosis and servicing for your Ford vehicle
When your Ford vehicle was manufactured it was assigned a unique number (the Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN). From the VIN we can tell certain information about your vehicle, including its model, age, the software it uses, its technical specifications.
In order to diagnose, analyse, repair or service your vehicle, the technicians working on it will need to collect the VIN together with certain diagnostic information and information about the current state of your vehicle (for example, what software versions it is using, its mileage etc.).
This information will be transferred to a system run by Ford so that the technicians working on your vehicle can be provided with vehicle-specific repair, maintenance and diagnostic information (such as wiring diagrams and vehicle software updates) and information about any past work carried out on your vehicle to assist them to diagnose, repair and/or service it and to enable them to maintain their records.
To make sure your vehicle has a comprehensive diagnosis record, information about what work is done to your vehicle when it is serviced or repaired will be linked to the VIN of your vehicle. This will be transferred to the system and stored so that Ford (or any third parties it authorises to use the system in this way) can make information about past repair or service available to any dealer or repairer anywhere in the world who needs to repair or service your vehicle.
The information held on the system is also used by Ford to enable the diagnosis, repair of your vehicle, to manage and administer warranties and similar products and services, for product safety and research and development purposes and to enable Ford to comply with its legal obligations.
In addition to the transfers of information described above, Ford may also pass this information to:
- companies in the Ford corporate Group for the purposes of research and development and analytics; and/or
- to companies in the Ford corporate Group and/or third parties where we believe this is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, or otherwise to protect our rights, the rights of other companies in the Ford Motor Company corporate group, or the rights of any third party.
You can find out more about the legal grounds we rely on when we use your personal information What lawful grounds do we rely on when we use your personal information?.
Given the global nature of the system, VIN information is transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area by Ford. You can find out more about the international transfers of personal information we make Transferring your personal information internationally.
As this information is a formal record of your vehicle, we retain it for [20 years].
If you have any questions, or would like to access the information about your VIN held in the system or exercise any of the other rights you have in relation to your personal information (you can find out more about these here), please write to:
Privacy Enquiry
PO Box 616
Hull
HU9 9PR
Or by email to:
dpeurope@ford.com
Ford Motor Company Limited. Registered in England: No.235446, Registered Office:Arterial Road, Laindon, Essex, England, SS15 6EE.
– PP-18-002 – Published – 27.04.2018