The technical inspection reform was supposed to deal with illegal diagnostic cards, but fraudsters are mastering Photoshop en masse. Maintenance operators complain: special equipment for shooting will require serious costs. Car owners are intimidated by excessive demands on the condition of their cars and are ready to buy fake cards online. Izvestia figured out why the idea of photographing does not work and whether it is difficult to pass the inspection honestly.
On March 1, changes in the inspection procedure came into force. And although the current diagnostic cards were extended until the fall, some motorists have to undergo maintenance according to the new rules.
The main innovation is photographing the car at the station and sending the data to the traffic police. They take pictures of the car at the entrance and exit from the service station. Photos, coordinates of the place where the inspection was carried out, the start and end time of the vehicle check, together with the information on technical diagnostics, are entered by the operator into the Unified Automated Information System for Technical Inspection (EAISTO), which is maintained by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
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We will draw your car
Shooting requirements are normal, no special equipment or software is required. This is what the fraudsters took advantage of, and the reform was initially aimed at fighting against them.
The fact is that all data about the date and place of shooting, transferred to the base, is stored only in an EXIF file, which can be easily edited. Moreover, the fixation of coordinates and the equipment that should do this are not regulated in any way in the order of the Ministry of Transport.
Photo: Izvestia / Alexander Kazakov
Attackers simply draw the car in the right place on the photo of the service station, and manually enter the geotags and time into the file’s metadata. For the transfer, you only need a computer with the installed software of the TO operator with the necessary electronic signature and data for connecting to the traffic police database. Thus, having in hand retouched photographs, an account, an EAISTO login and a signature, a fraudster can create a diagnostic card and send it to the traffic police database.
The main thing is that the database contains
Insurers shrug their shoulders and note that all they need to issue OSAGO is information in EAISTO. In the event of an accident due to a vehicle malfunction, the insurance company will deal with the technical inspection operator, and not with the car owner.
“Insurers do not have the authority to independently determine the authenticity of diagnostic cards (DK). Moreover, from March 1, 2021, the DC is generated in electronic form and stored in the EAISTO database. State control over the conduct of TO FZ 170 on technical inspection is entrusted to the traffic police, it is she who must check the rules for carrying out maintenance and, if violations are detected, the right to cancel the DC issued by the operator of TO, – Sergey Efremov, Deputy Executive Director of RSA, told Izvestia. – If the cause of the insured event was an accident due to a faulty vehicle and this malfunction could and should have been identified during the inspection, then the insurer, after reimbursing the victim for the loss, has the right to present recourse claims to the maintenance operator to reimburse the costs incurred. “
Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Kryazhev
The Ministry of Transport and the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, where the Izvestia correspondent turned, did not give any explanations at the time the material was prepared.
There is a way out, but there is no money
Grigory Shukhman, a participant in the development of GOST for photo and video recording complexes, believes that the problem of data encryption is solved quite simply. However, special equipment and software development will be required.
“In my opinion, the Ministry of Internal Affairs should formulate the requirements for the imported material and the format of the data package that the complex should issue at the service station. The equipment itself must be officially certified as a measuring instrument that meets the requirements of the format for working with EAISTO, ”said Shukhman.
The expert offers two options for solving the problem with the equipment: “mobile” and regular.
“First of all, it can be a mobile device based on a tablet like parkets without automatic mode and other bells and whistles. This solution is suitable for use at maintenance points that are located on dedicated sites, they can take a photo of the car directly at the hangar gates where maintenance is carried out. The second option is a stationary complex with several cameras fixed at the entrances and a remote receiver of the navigation system. Optimal for points located deep in buildings, where there is no open sky at the entrance to the line of sight. Thus, the fixation is carried out automatically when entering and exiting a checkpoint or a maintenance line, ”Shukhman said. He emphasized that the second version of the complex should automatically check the integrity of the channels and communication with the navigation system receiver and cameras during launch and operation.
Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Kryazhev
Shukhman drew attention to the fact that the Ministry of Internal Affairs should provide an “entry point” for connecting the fixation devices, so that they, at the command of the operator, or automatically could transfer the fixation materials and measurement results to the EAISTO MIA server.
How much such equipment costs can be illustrated by the example of photo and video cameras, which have been operating in Moscow for a long time. For example, the cost of one Parkon complex, which includes a navigation module, is 249 thousand rubles. Another 110 thousand rubles will need to be paid for a data processing kit, which includes a workstation with installed software, a software CD and an LCD monitor. In total – 359 thousand rubles for one inspection point. Of course, such expenses will greatly affect the cost of a diagnostic card and may equal the cost of obtaining it with the price of an illegal purchase.
Is it fair to inspect?
It is possible to get a diagnostic card, honestly passing the inspection, if the car is in tidy condition and is as close as possible to the factory configuration. There should be no cracks on the windshield on the driver’s side in the area where the wipers work. It is advisable to remove additional gadgets.
Therefore, not all cars today can honestly pass the inspection on the first try. After all, the average age of a fleet in Russia, according to the analytical agency “Autostat”, is 13 years. Recall that cars over 10 years old need to undergo maintenance once a year.
Maxim Burdyugov, chairman of the Union of Technical Inspection Operators, notes that on average, about 40% of cars do not pass MOT on the first attempt. At the same time, almost everyone who did not go through MOT immediately returns for a second inspection, eliminating the malfunction, and receive a diagnostic card.
Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Kryazhev
Burdyugov said that in his practice he faced attempts to “pay off” the operator. But revealing such a fraud can be very expensive for both the technical expert and the entire station.
“There are clients who try to negotiate on the spot, but mostly the operators do not agree. The operator is responsible for each issued diagnostic card, and if it is revealed that the technical inspection was not carried out in full or in violation, the operator will pay a fine of 200-300 thousand rubles for each case for a legal entity and 30-50 thousand rubles for an official of a technical expert, ”said the chairman of the Union of Technical Inspection Operators.
Where “Zhiguli” were – there is nothing to be afraid of
Judging by the reviews on the forums and in social networks, even Zhiguli over 20 years old can easily get the coveted diagnostic card. For example, the owner of the VAZ-2104 released in the distant 1984 did not have any special problems when going through MOT, “except for one marker lamp and, as luck would have it, a new leaked radiator cap.”
“The requirements are now softer than before. The comments are more advisory in nature, ”wrote another owner of the VAZ-2101, released in 1976, on his blog. And he complained that after 10 minutes of checking, he had to while away the remaining time in anticipation.
Photo: RIA Novosti / Mikhail Fomichev
The fact is that, according to the requirements of Federal Law No. 170-FZ of 01.07.2011, the duration of a car inspection should take from 34 to 39 minutes. Photographing is carried out at the entrance and exit, so the owners of younger cars also fall into the “trap”.
“All of the above took 10-12 minutes, and then I was entertained for almost 20 minutes with anecdotes and conversations for my life, since the database does not allow me to upload a photo of the car“ after ”earlier than 30 minutes later,” the owner of Lada Vesta described in his blog the passage of the technical inspection.