How to Subpoena Vehicle & Phone Telematics After a Crash
A preservation letter keeps crash data alive. It rarely puts that data in your hands. This guide covers the second stage — using subpoenas and discovery, after a lawsuit is filed, to compel production of vehicle and phone records.
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Two Different Stages
Preservation Now, Production Later
Before any lawsuit exists, the goal is simple: stop the data from being destroyed. The firm's free black-box and telematics preservation guide covers that stage — what the data is, who holds it, and how to send a preservation demand today. Use it first. A subpoena served next year cannot produce data that was purged last month.
This page picks up where that one stops. Once a lawsuit or civil action is filed, litigation tools open up: subpoenas to third parties and discovery demands to the other side. That is usually what it takes, because a third party's duty to hand anything over before suit is limited — and the most useful crash data almost always sits with a third party.
The Legal Landscape
Who Owns Crash Data, and Why That Dictates the Route
The vehicle's Event Data Recorder — the "black box" in the airbag control module — is governed by federal rules. Where a vehicle is equipped with a covered EDR, 49 CFR Part 563 standardizes what it captures around a crash event: speed, braking, throttle, and seatbelt and airbag status. It records the event, not a continuous feed.
Under the federal Driver Privacy Act of 2015, that EDR data is the property of the vehicle's owner — or the lessee, if leased. Anyone else generally needs the owner's consent or a court order to retrieve it. Read that twice if the data you need sits in the other driver's car: without cooperation, getting it usually requires a filed case and a court's authority.
Beyond the EDR, the map spreads out. Automakers hold connected-services data on their own servers. Motor carriers hold electronic logging device (ELD) and engine-module records for commercial trucks. Phone carriers hold call and data records. Each is a separate custodian, and each gets its own demand.
The Process
The Post-Filing Route, Step by Step
Confirm preservation is already in place
Verify the vehicle has not been repaired, sold, or scrapped, and that preservation demands went to every data holder. If that has not happened, do it now — the preservation guide walks through it. Everything below depends on the data still existing.
File the case — subpoena power comes with it
In Minnesota state court, subpoenas issue under Rule 45 of the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure once an action is pending. An attorney can issue and sign a subpoena as an officer of the court; court administration can also issue one. This is the force a preservation letter never has: a subpoena is a command, and disobeying it without adequate excuse can be treated as contempt of court.
Serve the right custodian for each data type
EDR downloads usually run through the vehicle and a qualified technician, so the demand targets whoever controls the vehicle — often through discovery or an inspection demand rather than a third-party subpoena. Connected-services data goes to the automaker's records or legal-process unit. ELD and dispatch records go to the motor carrier. Phone records go to the carrier — with a caveat covered below.
Draft the demand narrowly and follow the notice rules
Identify the vehicle by VIN, define a tight date-and-time window, and name the data categories: EDR event records, connected-services telemetry, ELD driving-time records, call detail records. Narrow demands get fewer objections. Under Rule 45, a subpoena commanding production must also be served on the subject and noticed to every party at least seven days before the production date.
Enforce, or route around refusals
If a custodian objects or ignores the subpoena, the court can compel compliance. If a party to the lawsuit controls the data, discovery demands and motions to compel do the same work. Where federal privacy law blocks one path, consent from the account holder or an order from the court often opens another.
Custodian by Custodian
What Each Holder Keeps — and How Long
Retention is the weak point of every subpoena plan, and it is a moving target. Automakers such as GM, Ford, and Toyota run their own connected-services platforms, and none of them publishes a simple, stable retention schedule for crash-relevant telemetry — verify the current policy for the specific vehicle, and assume months rather than years. Commercial trucking records are better anchored: federal hours-of-service rules require motor carriers to keep driver logs for a limited period measured in months, so a truck case rewards fast filing.
Phone carriers are the most restricted path. Federal privacy law — the Stored Communications Act — generally prevents carriers from producing the content of calls or messages in a civil case. The practical routes are the account holder's own records obtained with that person's consent, non-content records such as call detail logs, and discovery demands aimed at the party rather than the carrier. Carrier retention schedules vary and change; treat any published figure as stale until confirmed.
One more surface worth checking: crash-scene video. If a traffic camera may have captured the collision, the camera-footage preservation protocol explains that clock — it runs even faster than the telematics one.
Important Information: Andrade Law is not affiliated with any vehicle manufacturer, telematics provider, phone carrier, or motor carrier named or described on this page. Data types, retention practices, and legal-process procedures are set by those companies and by law, and they change without notice — verify current requirements before relying on them.
This page is general information and is not legal advice. Contacting Andrade Law does not create an attorney-client relationship. Representation begins only after Andrade Law and the client sign a written engagement agreement. Every case depends on its own facts, and no result is guaranteed.