The rental car and car sharing data privacy nightmare

Synchronization of rental car and smartphone

Renting a car or using a car sharing service is a common way of getting around these days. Many also enjoy the comfort that comes with such a car. The typically full-feature entertainment system not only provides navigation and music applications, but also a smartphone connection. You do, after all, also want to be able to receive calls and messages directly from the car while you’re on the road. Practical, huh? But this also entails a sometimes unintended synchronization of personal or business contacts. Deleting them from the vehicle is typically complicated and involves many steps, or is simply neglected.

The hurdles of manual deletion attempts

From a privacy perspective, rental cars and car-sharing cars turn out to be veritable data krakens that collect a large amount of personal communications and contact data that deserves protection. The loss of data after synchronization can only be prevented by manually resetting the infotainment system to factory settings, say car manufacturers. However, according to a report by ADAC, such a reset can be radically different from one car model to the next and can sometimes be a formidable task. This is something many users don’t bother to do, if they are aware of the problem at all. This means that a large amount of sensitive data remains completely accessible to other renters, car rental companies, or even hackers in the returned cars.

Potential data leaks and their consequences

The risk affects every employee who has customer contact data stored on their smartphone. If it falls into the wrong hands, this can result in a considerable loss of trust on the part of the customer. In addition, there are personal consequences for the employee responsible for the data leak: Depending on the severity of the incident, a number of scenarios are conceivable, ranging from a formal warning from the employer to termination without notice.

Even more serious, however, are the consequences for those individuals who for professional or personal reasons are networked with celebrities or top managers from prominent companies. Just imagine the media interest in contact data for VW CEO Herbert Diess or German national soccer team coach Hansi Flick, to name just two examples. Top managers in particular risk their good relationships and reputation with this data privacy vulnerability—even though it is preventable.

The solution

How to comply with GDPR, ISO 27001, TISAX

To prevent unintentional data loss by employees, the Provectus Secure Contacts app provides a simple and straightforward solution. Company contacts are securely pooled in a single application, whether from the company address book, CRM, or personal Outlook contacts. It provides easy and always up-to-date access to all company contacts without having to sync them with the car’s infotainment system or a loss of data to third-party app providers such as WhatsApp. And all without running the risk of involuntary data leaks.