Dutch forensic researchers have reportedly decrypted Tesla’s data storage system, providing access to a trove of information that could be useful in crash investigations first reported by Reuters.
Now, Tesla records information about its customers’ driving behavior, both to improve its advanced driver assistance system, Autopilot, and also in the event of a crash, to provide to investigators.
But researchers at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) found that Tesla’s vehicles store far more detailed data than previously known, including speed, accelerator pedal position, steering wheel angle, and brake usage. Some of this data can be stored for up to a year, the institute said.
The team was investigating a crash involving a Tesla with Autopilot in use that had rear-ended another vehicle after it braked unexpectedly. Rather than seek the data from Tesla, the Dutch investigators chose to reverse engineer the company’s data logs in order to objectively assess them.
In a statement, Francis Hoogendijk, a digital investigator at the NFI said: “These data contain a wealth of information for forensic investigators and traffic accident analysts and can help with a criminal investigation after a fatal traffic accident or an accident with injury.”
The NFI said that even though Tesla has complied with data requests from the government in the past, the company also left out a lot of data that could have proven useful.
NFI’s report said: “Tesla however only supplies a specific subset of signals, only the ones requested, for a specific timeframe, whereas the log files contain all the recorded signals.”
The Dutch team said it was helpful to have a broader scope of data from Tesla’s vehicles, especially as cars become more like other digital products with the ability to log and store important information.
Hoogendijk said: “It would be good if this data would become available more often for forensic investigations. Now that we know what kind of data can be obtained from a Tesla, certain data can be requested even more specifically for the purpose of finding the truth after an accident.”
Tesla hasn’t said anything about the reports or the news yet.
