[Paul]

From BoingBoing:

Espen got a parking ticket for his Tesla, and he's pretty sure he can exonerate himself, if only the company would give him access to his car's data, but they won't.

But this is the interesting bit from the Norwegian owner himself:

And this is where it gets interesting (and where I stop caring about the parking ticket and start caring about principles): Norway has a Personal Data Protection Act, which dictates that if a company is saving data about you, they not only have to tell you what they save, but you also have a “right of inspection” (something I confirmed with a quick call to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority). Furthermore, I am vice chairman of Digitalt Personvern, an association working to repeal the EU data retention directive and know some of the best data privacy lawyers in Norway.

So I can probably set in motion a campaign to force Tesla Norway to give me access to my data, based on Norwegian law. Tesla’s policies may be American, but their Norwegian subsidiary has to obey Norwegian laws.

http://boingboing.net/2014/07/14/teslas-car-as-service-ve.html

 

[Lee Howard]

A comment on the source blog: http://appliedabstractions.com/2014/07/14/elon-i-want-my-data/ rightly points out that Tesla owners are already downloading their data - despite whatever Tesla Norway told him verbally over the phone.

 

[Paul]

Is it something Tesla enables or are they getting at it via "unauthorised" means? The comment itself is quite vague.

 

[Lee Howard]

Is it something Tesla enables or are they getting at it via "unauthorised" means? The comment itself is quite vague.

On TMC there are a lot of search results for "download logs"... like:

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/11387-Logs

 

[Paul]

On TMC there are a lot of search results for "download logs"... like:

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/11387-Logs

Which really only hints that it should certainly be possible to download and eventually decrypt the raw data, most likely via the OBDII port.

This is very different to Tesla sharing the nice, clean data they apparently have, and certainly wouldn't help this guy with his ticket situation. Or am I missing something?

 

[Lee Howard]

This is very different to Tesla sharing the nice, clean data they apparently have, and certainly wouldn't help this guy with his ticket situation. Or am I missing something?

Honestly, I don't know. I don't own or drive a Model S, unfortunately. It does seem clear that the information that this guy wants is accessible in some manner and form. Whether or not Tesla participates in the accessibility of that information and whether or not Tesla has some further obligation to its customers in providing information beyond what is already available, I don't know, either.

I am not a lawyer, but with my brief reading of Norway's Personal Data Protection Act Section 18 (Right of access), from http://www.dataprotection.eu/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.NO, I don't see how this guy is entitled to the specific data that he wants. I see that the law provides him details about the collection of the data and the descriptions of the data and explanations about the security of that data, but I don't see that he is entitled to the data, itself.

 

[Edd Beesley]

It's such a grey area "Tesla, please give me the position of my car last tuesday because my wife took it for the day and i think she's having an affair"

 

[Jimbo]

There is a java app called Visible Tesla that you can leave running on your PC. This uses the (unofficial) REST API to log into the car remotely and collect loads of data, live.

This is not the same as his request, which is for historical data.

We know that Tesla record this info when they want to (I.e. For journalist loaner cars) but this doesn't mean they do it wholesale for every car.

Another issue is that he would need to prove that he was in the car at the time - the same laws generally include privacy protection.

 

[Lee Howard]

It's such a grey area "Tesla, please give me the position of my car last tuesday because my wife took it for the day and i think she's having an affair"

And apparently Telsa already told this guy that the GPS data is not stored. However, the data that this guy wants (proof that his car was not parked there for more than 10 minutes) is accessible from numerous sources besides Tesla. I mean, was he carrying a cell phone which had GPS on it? Were there surveillance cameras recording that place? I mean, why does he pick on Tesla to harass about proving his whereabouts? He could similarly harass his cell-phone provider or any operators of surveillance cameras.