Privacy4cars.com - delete information your cars collect about you

[pmbug]

Saw this mentioned on my local news tonight:

Homepage - Privacy4Cars

Privacy4Cars enables the automotive ecosystem to delete personal information from vehicles in a fast, traceable, and cost-effective manner to reduce liability, meet regulatory requirements and improve customer satisfaction

privacy4cars.com

 

[Casey Jones]

How does that help you, given that so much is now fed into the "cloud" in real-time?

 

[pmbug]

I'm still investigating it, but it appears to be most useful in scrubbing info from any rental car your might use and any car you own that you plan to sell. There are different levels of risk depending upon whether you are connecting a cell phone to the car via bluetooth or not.

 

[walkingnam]

Hey bug: What good is this if the deletion of car info is traceable back to you. Not really sure how this is helpful for the average user or not,

Interested to know.

In a rental car would there be any come back on the renter who deletes information,

 

[pmbug]

According to privacy4cars, all this personal data could be left in your car:

Phonebook, Passwords, Call Logs, ID’s & Biometrics, Text Messages, Medical & Financial Info, Navigation History, User’s Profiles, Home Address, 3rd Party Apps, Garage Door Codes, Vehicle Credentials

Some are obviously tied to having connected a smartphone. Some are related to having an OEM navigation system. Some are related to the use of infotainment systems. This information is stored in the computers in the car itself. When 3rd parties have access to the car - whether you sell your personal vehicle, lose the vehicle if it gets totaled in an accident or were using a rental car which you have returned - they could potentially mine that data from the car.

More details here:

Delete Data From a Car - Privacy4Cars

Peace of Mind and Privacy Protection Easily delete your Personal Information from vehicles you drove or connected to. Download the Privacy4Cars App for FREE:

privacy4cars.com

From what I can discern, the privacy4cars app/system maintains a record that the car's data was wiped/cleaned, but does not retain a copy of the actual data that was deleted.

 

[Casey Jones]

Gee. Aren't we all glad we got smartphones? And that we could sync them to our rental cars?

What a SURPRISE!...NOT!