I have a telematics box (young drivers black box) recovered at the end of an insurance policy. Does anyone know whether these can be accessed and used to (eg) track a vehicle? or are they permanently assigned to the insurance company?
If you have one of these recorders as a non-interested party (boot sale) then I would expect that the EEPROM chip has been wiped. You will need an EPROM programmer and a suitable program with reader. Not all black boxes have the GSM chip. so you would need to have a poke around.
A google search for "telematics tear down" shows several versions with varying degrees of exposed electronics. It may or may not be possible to say more once you have it open - the sort that send reports as texts by GSM phone, or as mobile data would need you to change who it sent data to, and how to do that may not be that obvious.
Some designs have or had a GSM module with a serial interface (or a USB interface that depends to be a serial port) and then the Hayes modem commands can be skimmed as they go past, but it is not really an easy DIY task unless you have plenty of time to read up on it and the kit.
Whether data be accessed after a certain time, depends on the model really. Some devices definitely store a specific amount of data until powered off which can provide info and usually that is varied. You need the know-how to retrieve that info as well.
