Source: McDonald Hopkins
It is a great convenience to connect (or just charge) your smartphone when traveling in a rental car. But this convenience brings significant risks, as evidenced by a recent warning from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as a research paper from George Mason University. Users should know the risks, as well as preventative steps, and companies may want to consider implementing a “do not connect business phones to rental cars” policy.
On August 30, 2016, the FTC issued a warning to consumers entitled, “What is your phone telling your rental car?” FTC attorney Lisa Schifferle explained that automobile software often keeps “your mobile number, call and message logs, or even contacts and text messages.” Some car systems may keep your GPS data, such as locations visited. If you are a frequent traveler, you have likely discovered this kind of residual data when you turned on the rental car (or paired your phone). While this scant information may initially seem harmless, such aggregated data could be used to develop identifying information about you or it may reveal confidential corporate information (e.g., contact names, text messages, phone numbers).