Fleet Telematics: Managing Privacy Concerns

Telematics is an important tool for fleets. Your devices let you monitor driving behaviors, track your vehicle’s location, and record information. You can use these insights to increase fleet safety and efficiency.

As you collect this data, however, your drivers may worry about their privacy and the kind of information you’re tracking.

Getting your drivers on-board with your fleet telematics will help you prevent conflict while you track your vehicle insights.

How to manage fleet telematics and privacy concerns

1. Inform your fleet drivers

When your drivers first hear that you will be tracking their behaviors and vehicle, they may jump to the worst conclusion. You can avoid misinformed pushback by involving your drivers from the start.

Hold a training session to introduce your team to the new tools. You can explain how the devices work and what information you will gather. 

Most importantly, tell your drivers why you’re tracking this data.

Show them how driver safety increases when safer driving practices are enforced. Your vehicles are an expensive asset, so remind your team that you have a duty to protect them.

Along with these sessions for current employees, you should also offer this information to all new hires.

2. Be honest about the data you’re collecting

Your drivers have a right to know what’s being tracked. If you monitor in-cab actions, for example, you shouldn’t tell your team that you only monitor location and speeding. 

Along with informing them about your telematics solution, you should also make policies for these devices. These policies should clearly state what kind of data you’re collecting and how you are using it. If you upgrade your solution and start gathering more information, be sure to update your policy.

If your employees bring their vehicles home, the data you collect during off-hours may be more restricted. You may only, for example, track the vehicle location for security reasons. However you choose to use your data, make sure it is clearly stated in your policy for driver peace of mind.

3. Protect your driver’s data

Once you have driver data, handle it carefully. Some information, such as individual driver behaviors, will need to identify the user. After using it to address concerns or reward excellence, however, it should be carefully stored and protected.

Make sure you only give access to the people who need it. Don’t share this information with anyone or any company that doesn’t need it. Your drivers will feel better about your telematics solution when they know they can trust you with the data.

Ready to improve your fleet’s safety, costs, and efficiency? Learn more about our fleet telematics installs today.