Every smartphone user leaves traces of data everywhere. Even in the car. This can be critical with rental cars and car sharing vehicles.
If you pair your smartphone with a rental car or car sharing vehicle, you should delete your personal data before returning it. So far, only a few providers have erasure routines that take over the work automatically, as the ADAC has determined.
When the cell phone is paired, the phone book and call data may be transferred from the device to the vehicle's memory. Destination searches in the navigation system may also be visible to the next user. And the passwords of streaming services or other apps on the vehicle infotainment system are usually not removed automatically.
Not all data stored in the car are immediately visible to the next customer, but at least in theory they can be read out. If you want to prevent this, you have to reset the vehicle's infotainment system to the factory settings and actively decouple the smartphone. Anyone who has used infotainment apps should log out there. The automobile club is calling on car rental companies and car sharing companies to automatically delete their users' personal data from their vehicles in the future.
