Ford wants to protect you from accidental drug trafficking

• Ford has patented a unique drug detection system for its cars.
• The system monitors your vehicle to ensure that no one plants drugs.
• This is intended to prevent people from becoming blind sales assistants for human traffickers.

Modern vehicles are packed with cameras, microphones and other high-tech sensors that make them smarter than ever. They can detect and prevent impending collisions, determine if you're too tired to drive, monitor your blind spots and could one day help prevent you from becoming an unwitting target for a drug smuggler.

A new Ford patent, filed in March 2023 and published on September 19, describes an “unknown cargo detection and evidence collection system” designed to prevent vehicle owners from becoming “blind mules” for drug traffickers. Blind mules are people caught crossing the border with drugs they don't know they have. It's a common scheme for drug traffickers looking to bring contraband into the United States without risking their freedom.

Ford's system is designed to prevent such schemes in a number of ways. It uses a vehicle's various sensors and cameras to do this. For example, it checks the weight of the vehicle, listens for suspicious activity nearby and looks for unknown GPS radio frequencies that travel with the car. Smugglers often monitor the location of their victims in order to pick up the contraband on the other side of the border.

If the system detects unusual activity — say, someone standing too close to the vehicle for too long — it can activate the cameras, record the surroundings and save the footage as evidence. Additional weight in the vehicle, such as several hundred pounds of drugs, would also cause a change in driving style, which Ford's system would monitor. But like the patent for in-vehicle advertising, it's just a patent for now, and companies like to protect their intellectual property even if it's never used.

It seems like a strange thing to fight against, but there have been people caught, prosecuted and found innocent for being “blind mules,” according to a 2023 report. inewsource They reportedly faced years of legal problems. Some discovered the drugs they had planted before crossing the border, while others crossed the border and found the drugs before the dealers could pick them up.

The rise of fentanyl has brought new challenges, however, as the drug can be shipped in much smaller quantities, making it even easier for dealers to smuggle things through. And things like relay attacks, which thieves use to steal vehicles, could easily give drug dealers access to millions of trunks.