Whether it’s a family vacation or on a business trip, renting a vehicle is a familiar and convenient way of getting around and exploring at your destination. Usually, it’s a pretty straightforward and risk-free procedure. But as one expert is warning, renters need to be careful with one thing in particular …
“You can typically do everything with your rental car that you would do with your own car,” says car rental expert Harry Anapliotis – CEO of Rental Center Crete, a premier car hire company based in Greece. “But there’s one thing you should never do – a mistake that most people who lease cars make – that can have serious ramifications.”
Below, Harry explains the one thing you should never do when you hire a vehicle.
When Hiring a Car, Don’t Do This
“Renting a car these days comes with a risk that didn’t exist years ago when technology was simpler. Ironically, the risk lies in doing something both pleasant and convenient, and that’s connecting your smartphone to the car’s system,” says Harry.
“Your smartphone likely contains a lot of personal and sensitive information like your contacts, call logs, text messages, and media files,” says Harry. “When you link your phone to the rental car’s system, the car gets access to specific data needed for the connection—typically contacts, call history, and media libraries.”
According to Harry, the infotainment systems in modern cars store this data every time you connect your smartphone—and often without making it clear to users. The concerning part is that this data stays there until it’s manually deleted, which rental companies rarely do between customers.
This means your contact information, call history, and other personal data could become accessible to other renters, car rental employees, and potentially anyone with access to the vehicle’s systems – including cybercriminals.
A lot of consumers are unaware of this privacy risk. There’s a common misconception that personal data is automatically protected or deleted whenever we disconnect our devices. But the reality is different – these vehicle systems retain your information until someone manually removes it. Data shared improperly constitutes a potential security breach and leaves consumers vulnerable.
“Most people who sync their phones to rental vehicles make the mistake of forgetting to delete their data profiles from the car before returning it to the rental company,” explains Harry. “And that can lead to serious privacy issues down the line.”
How to Avoid This Risk
Unless your requirements are quite extreme, and you need to use the internet in the vehicle, you don’t need to sync your mobile device to a rental car’s system and run the risk of leaving legacy data on the vehicle for others to access.
Instead, you can use a USB converter, audio cable, speakerphone, or a hands-free headset.
These simple solutions will enable you to interact with the car’s systems effectively – likely well enough for telephonic and entertainment use.
If you need to navigate while driving the rental car, use your smartphone to do this.
How to Clear Your Synced Data From a Rental Car’s System
To clear your synced data from a rental car’s system …
Disconnect your phone
– Select the car’s Bluetooth or Wi-Fi settings
– Find the paired devices list
– Select your phone and select Unpair, Delete, or Remove
Erase your navigation history
– Go to the car’s navigation settings
– Clear your location history
Perform a factory reset
– Access the car’s infotainment system settings
– Look for ‘Factory Reset’, ‘Clear Personal Data’, or ‘Restore Default Settings’
– Perform a Factory Reset and Confirm the action
Other steps
– Delete cached data on the rental vehicle’s infotainment system
– Delete your contact list from the rental vehicle’s infotainment system
– Check for synced data like call logs, texts, or contacts on the car’s system
– Delete this information
CEO of Rental Center Crete, Harry Anapliotis, comments:
“The seemingly harmless and familiar act of synching your phone with your rental car can in fact expose a huge amount of your sensitive information to the wrong people. Things like your contacts, voice and text messages, passwords, user-names, GPS data, and even medical and financial information.
“Most modern cars have embedded connectivity. It’s now expected and normal. As vehicles become ever more like mobile connected computers, they are actually coming under ever greater scrutiny around data privacy. And rightly so.
“Concern for this issue has reached government levels. The good news is that by applying my tips and being data security aware, you can reduce the risk caused by synching your device to your rental car to all but zero.”
