Selling a car is something akin to selling a personal computer these days. Vehicles built in the last five or 10 years may contain sensitive, personal information that the new owner can access, Forbes reported.
With features such as GPS navigation and mobile phone integration, newer vehicles store plenty of handy information about their previous owners.
"A few years ago, we bought a Chrysler Town & Country minivan from Carmax," Forbes contributor Tony Bradley wrote about his experience purchasing a used vehicle. "The 2009 minivan was equipped with a version of Chrysler's MyGIG system--a 20GB hard drive that stores music, photos, and more. As a bonus, we discovered that it was actually already loaded with music and photos ... from its previous owner."
A car's built-in GPS is a goldmine for personal information, especially when car owners program in the "Home" point of reference and places they frequently visit.
While people are accustomed to wiping the hard drives of PCs or cellphones before reselling them, they aren't yet used to doing the same for cars, refrigerators or TVs.
Vehicles with GPS systems, Samsung refrigerators with Google calendar and Twitter account information and TVs with Netflix account credentials all provide an opening for criminals to use people's personal information.
"It won't take long for criminals to figure out that used vehicles are a source of valuable information, and they will start "shopping" for high-end used cars like Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, or BMW in order to get home address information and target wealthier victims," Bradley said.
Even if owners know to do so, removing data from these systems pose problems. Erasing information from newer devices may not be as intuitive as it is on a computer, and even wiping the data doesn't mean it can't be recovered.
According to Forbes, car dealerships should implement a system to ensure information is erased before the vehicle goes on to a new owner.
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