IRVING, Texas -

Repossessions agents now can secure more than just personal property from inside a repossessed vehicle.

On Wednesday, the American Recovery Association (ARA) announced a partnership with Privacy4Cars, a technology company focused on identifying and resolving data privacy issues across the automotive ecosystem, to offer a suite of privacy, safety, security, and compliance services for its clients.

ARA acknowledged awareness of an industry-wide concern with the personal data stored in the electronic systems of repossessed vehicles. As technology continues to advance, vehicles will store growing amounts of nonpublic personal information (NPI), which may be accessed, without the knowledge or consent of the previous vehicle user, by future occupants. This may include sensitive personal information such as detailed geolocation, home address, garage codes, text messages, phone contacts, personal identifiers, biometrics and more.

Not deleting NPI is a risk, considering the many federal and state laws regulating privacy, data security, data breach, data retention and biometrics, according to a news release from ARA.

“When auto finance companies repossess a vehicle, they end up owning the NPI stored in the asset, and consequently have to put administrative, technical, and physical safeguards in place to ensure the privacy and security of customers’ information.” Privacy4Cars chief executive officer and founder Andrea Amico said in the news release.

“A growing number of manufacturers’ privacy policies state that the NPI stored in vehicles must be removed at handoffs to prevent future owners from gaining unauthorized access to customers’ sensitive data,” Amico continued.

With repossessions, this responsibility clearly falls on the lender, which is why we applaud the American Recovery Association who, through this partnership, is looking out to the best interest of both consumers and the auto finance community they serve,” he went on to say.

Under this new partnership, ARA now can offer its clients safety nets and protections to improve customer experience, reduce risk, and extend data governance across vehicles in the U.S. and Canada.

“We are excited to work closely in partnership with Privacy4Cars,” ARA president Dave Kennedy said. “This initiative will allow ARA members to feel secure in regard to their ability to protect the consumers’ privacy, and receive standardized records proving their data protection and record disposal policies are regularly enacted.”

For more information, contact ARA executive director Les McCook at homeoffice@americanrecoveryassn.org.