Waymo Denies Plan to Use Robotaxis’ Interior Cameras to Personalize Ads

Autonomous vehicle firm Waymo denied a media report that it plans to use data from its robotaxis’ interior cameras to identify individuals or personalize ads.

The company’s statement to PYMNTS came in response to a Monday (April 7) TechCrunch report that said Waymo may use interior camera data from its robotaxis, tied to riders’ identities, to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) models and sell personalized ads.

The TechCrunch reported cited a post on X from researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who said an unreleased privacy page from Waymo said the company may use the data for those purposes, while also allowing riders to opt out.

The privacy page said, per the TechCrunch report: “Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests. You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”

When reached by PYMNTS for comment on the report, Waymo said in an emailed statement that the unreleased app page “contains placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose.”

The company added that the feature is still under development, that it doesn’t introduce any changes to the company’s privacy policy, and that it will give riders the opportunity to opt out of data collection for machine learning (ML) training purposes.

“The data is used among other things, to train models for safety, to make sure cars are clean, find lost items, provide help in case of emergency, check that in-car rules are being followed and improve products and services,” the Waymo statement said. “Waymo’s ML systems are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads.”

Waymo said in March that it had begun offering rides in autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, and that the vehicles have already driven millions of miles in the company’s core markets of San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

The company’s cars operate at Level 4, where the car can drive itself but is restricted to an area, according to a definition of autonomous levels by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.