Your car can tell more about you than you think. Apart from giving people an idea of your car preferences, your car actually contains your personal data. These include addresses, log-in credentials, and even your routes to you house and work.
If you happen to be planning on giving your car away to a friend or relative or selling it to a total stranger, it is actually wise for you to wipe your personal data first.
Personal Data Your Car May Have
Before we get to how you can remove all your personal data from your vehicle, let us first idenify what kind of data it may be holding to begin with. Knowing what kind of information your car may hold will help you figure out how to best remove them from your vehicle.
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the entertainment system in particular contains the following personal data you want to delete first before you get rid of your car:
- Garage door codes
- Location data - This include addresses as well as the routes you take when going home, to work, and heading to other places you frequent.
- Mobile apps - Particularly, the log-in information you use for your mobile apps may be stored in your car's entertainment system
- Phone contacts or your address book - These may have been stored in your car's entertainment system when you synced your phone with your car
How You Can Remove Your Personal Data From Your Car
There are many steps you can and should take in order to clear your personal data from a car that you are planning to sell or allow someone else to permanently use.
HowStuffWorks recommends that you "log out of all mobile apps that are included in your car or that pair to an app that lives on your smartphone, and make sure your account names and passwords do not automatically populate to log you back in."
You should also make sure to "cancel or transfer over subscriptions, such as data plans, Wi-Fi hotspots, emergency communication services and satellite radio or music streaming services."
Do not forget to remove all the data in your car's phone book as well as the maps that can be found in the navigation system. All keep in mind to remove all the bluetooth pairings and, if you have an automatic garage door opener, to reset it as well.
As far as storage devices that may contain your personal data, make sure your car's removable data storage are all empty. If it has a built-in hard drive, delete everything in it as well.
Finally, you cannot go wrong with using your car's factory reset feature if it has one as it will remove all the data and settings stored in the vehicle.
Read Also: Buying A New Car: Test Drive It First
