Car rental: where the vehicle is and how it came back

Kilometres driven are logged automatically, so the reading at hand-over and return is not copied off the odometer by hand and does not depend on how careful a colleague was during a busy spell.

When a mileage limit is part of the contract, the difference between what was agreed and what was driven shows immediately, with dates, and not only at the end of the month.

Rental agreements often limit which countries the vehicle may be taken to. Geofences do exactly that job: you draw an area and get an alert when the vehicle leaves it.

The same applies to vehicles that should not leave the city or the airport area. The alert arrives when it happens, not when the vehicle comes back.

The last known location and the movement history are the first thing you need when a vehicle does not come back on time. That does not replace reporting it to the authorities and it is not a recovery service, but it shortens the path from guesswork to a concrete fact.

The device is fitted out of sight and wired to permanent power; if the power is cut, the vehicle simply stops reporting, and the last report stays on record with its time and location.

This is the part most often skipped in practice. When you track a vehicle driven by your customer, you are processing their personal data, not just your own business data. Tracking therefore has to be written clearly into the rental agreement, with an explanation of its purpose and duration, rather than buried there as an unpleasant surprise.

The purpose should be limited and specific: protecting the vehicle, checking the agreed area and the mileage, not general surveillance of a person's movements during the hire. This is general information, not legal advice; check the wording in your contract with your own lawyer.