An Australian car hire firm has revealed controversial plans to install GPS tracking devices in their rental vehicles in order to monitor customers during their hire period.

The move to install GPS tracking devices has not gone down well with Civil Liberties Australia who believes the practice would be an infringement of privacy laws.

DriveMyCar Rentals intend to fit the tiny GPS devices in 30% of their fleet in order to give the owners of the vehicles assurance that their vehicles is being well looked after.

Using the GPS signal, the car hire company will be able to know in real time the exact location of the vehicle. Plus they can be notified by text message if the car hire customer has breached any of the terms of their rental agreement, such as driving the hire car down a dirt track.

However the car hire company says the information is not stored, it can only view the GPS location of vehicles in real time, and not view where it has been.

All car hire customers will be notified to the presence of the GPS system in their cars by the company’s terms and conditions, and also in their hire contract. Plus DriveMyCar will ensure all vehicles carrying a device will have a sticker clearly displayed to notify the customer.