Auto Theft Forensics

Event Data Recorders (EDR) in vehicles record engineering data that can be useful when investigating a traffic incident. However, data recovered from in-vehicle infotainment systems can be as comprehensive, if not more, than the data recoverable from Event Data Recorders.

The in-vehicle infotainment system is the screen in the center console that a user interfaces with, usually through a touchscreen, to select music, call or text other people, use applications, or navigate. For hundreds of models of vehicles, digital forensic technology exists that allows the data from the in-vehicle infotainment system to be collected and analyzed.

Data collected from an in-vehicle infotainment system can include:

• Navigation history
• Social media feeds
• Emails
• Text messages
• Bluetooth connections
• Whether the vehicle's lights were on and off
• Whether the driver was turning volume or tuning knobs, opening a window, or locking or unlocking doors, or changing the gear indicator
• Location and track points

Information from vehicle infotainment systems can be critical for human factors experts when determining if a driver was distracted. For instance, were they selecting music on the touchscreen at the time of an accident, or were they reaching over to turn the tuning knob?

Also, imagine a scenario where a phone that was critical to a case had been lost or the data wiped. What if there are no cloud backups of the phone, and the phone was never backed up to a computer? There is still one place to look for the data: the car. When a user syncs a cell phone to a vehicle, it copies over contact lists, messages, emails, chat apps, and more depending on the vehicle and model of the phone. Our experts can investigate these types of data to uncover key evidence for a case or a claim.