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Comment by MrDresden | Hacker News Reader

Frankly I feel that for this kind of investication (car crashes and accidents) the manufacturer should be required to hand over all data relevant to the investigation. On device logs are probably the most relevant data you could get in these cases.

That this lab decided to try to decipher the data, and found troves of it that wasn't known to exist before, speaks to how the relationship must be.

They didn't trust Tesla to hand everything over.

In my humble opinion, any region should force all manufacturer of cars that will be sold in that region to hand over data (or methods by extracting the data) in cases like these, lest their license to sell their product be rescinded.

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I’d go further, and say that the data should be exportable in a predefined format (ideally an open standard), so that investigators can use 3rd party tools to investigate any make of ‘smart car’.

I feel like the owner should get access rather than institutes or the manufacturers. Anyone else should figure it out with said owner.

What if the owner caused the accident and has an interest to deny access to the data?

Then you obtain a warrant for that data, as intended by due process of law. If the owner still refuses to hand it over, you have them on obstruction of justice.

Hah, you were a minute faster. :)

I'd go further still, the telemetry data should be standardised the same way OBD-II interfaces are. Open source the tech, or at least disclose it to researchers upon request.

In the first place, the owners of the cars should have full read access to all data that their car generates.

and then: "To protect your privacy, we have restricted this functionality, this way, your wife cannot know where you travelled."

In the EU at least, GDPR got this covered:

https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-data-port...

I don't know of any case in automotive where this kind of data was requested.

So, you think it’s OK if the car you own spies on you, using electricity you pay for?

I’m rephrasing it that way to show that, depending on details this might be close to what Apple intended to do w.r.t. child pornography, something ‘the internet’ wasn’t a fan of, to say it mildly.

There’s a difference here in that there’s an ‘investigation’, but you’re also talking of ‘car crashes and accidents’, so this could get reasonably close (we already have cars that call 911 crash; should they also report it when they hear car accident-like sounds that co-occur with unexpected car movements?). Who’s going to decide whether an accident is serious enough to warrant this? Should car owners have the right to disable this kind of recording?

The car is already spying on you. I think the question is: if data is available to the manufacturer, should it be available to investigators?

I am think it is reasonable. Tesla uses these data to protect themselves (for example by showing that autopilot wasn't in use during an accident). It is not really about user privacy anymore, it is about corporate interests, and I think road safety is more important, that's why we have all these regulations.

The car is already spying on you. I think the question is: It shouldn't be spying on you.

The data belongs to the car owner. If the owner wants to disable data collection, so be it. If anyone else wants that data, they can ask the owner for the decryption key and access to their car to make a copy.

I don't think it's even remotely reasonable for devices that we own to betray us. My car should protect me, not the manufacturer.

This is not what apple suggested. Apple suggested preemptively notifying government of "illegal" material in a users device. This is about facilitating an ongoing specific investigation after a car accident.

> this might be close to what Apple intended to do w.r.t. child pornography, something ‘the internet’ wasn’t a fan of, to say it mildly.

Not to completely disregard your point but its not the same. After seeing a few brain bits splattered across windows and chairs/dashboards, stray limbs...road accidents are in another lesgue entirely. We sort of need accidents to happen so that regulation of technology will use blood as ink/toner.

My comment was clear and to the point on the availability of local on device data to car crash investigators. Take that as you may.

> In my humble opinion, any region should force all manufacturer of cars that will be sold in that region to hand over data (or methods by extracting the data)

This is precisely what is required from Tesla in China.

Isn't this against the principle behind the right to not produce evidence against oneself?

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