Tesla's Unauthorized Full Self-Driving Activation Prompts Investigation Request from Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has requested an investigation after detecting cases of regulatory violations in Korea, such as unauthorized activation of the supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature on certain Tesla models.

A Tesla store in the United States. Photo by Yonhap News

On April 23, the ministry announced that it had recently asked the National Police Agency to investigate attempts at unauthorized activation of Tesla's FSD system. The ministry has been monitoring illegal activities since late last month, after Tesla Korea reported a software vulnerability in the affected vehicles.

If a user arbitrarily activates the FSD function, Tesla deactivates the vehicle remotely in accordance with the Cybersecurity Management System (CSMS) for automobiles. As a result, attempts at unauthorized activation have sharply decreased this month; however, since some vehicles continue to show FSD activation attempts, a formal investigation has been initiated.

In Korea, the Tesla FSD feature is permitted only for American-made Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck vehicles, which are exempt from local automotive safety certification under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Nonetheless, there have been ongoing attempts to illegally activate FSD on other models, such as the China-manufactured Model Y, by using unofficial external devices or publicly available source code.

Unauthorized activation of Tesla's FSD feature may result in imprisonment for up to two years or a fine of up to 20 million won, in accordance with relevant laws. The ministry stated, "Arbitrary modifications to software that impact the safe operation of vehicles are strictly prohibited."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.