| CPC G07C 5/02 (2013.01) [G06F 16/252 (2019.01); G06F 21/602 (2013.01); G07C 5/008 (2013.01); H04W 4/023 (2013.01); H04W 4/40 (2018.02)] | 23 Claims |
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1. A method for verifying vehicle usage data reflecting mileage or an operating hours count of a vehicle, the method comprising:
a) sensing mileage or operating hours of the vehicle by a sensor of the vehicle;
b) transmitting, by the vehicle, vehicle data to a first observer entity when the vehicle and the first observer entity are in proximity, wherein the vehicle data comprises unique vehicle identification information and vehicle usage data including the mileage or the operating hours retrieved from the sensor, and wherein proximity is defined by an upper threshold for a distance between the vehicle and the first observer entity;
c) generating, by the first observer entity, first joint data by adding first data to the vehicle data, the first data being correlated to vehicle usage to include at least an indication of a position of the first observer entity;
d) transmitting the first joint data to an external database and storing the first joint data in the external database;
e) repeating steps a) to d) at least once using a second, different observer entity to generate at least second joint data by adding, to the vehicle data, second data comprising at least an indication of a position of the second observer entity;
f) calculating, by a central processor connected to the external database, from at least the first data and the second data, a usage estimation value which is a measure for the mileage or the operating hours count of the vehicle by at least accumulating distances between successive positions derived from the added data during step e);
g) comparing, by the central processor, the usage estimation value with the vehicle usage data retrieved from the sensor of the vehicle; and
h) generating, by the central processor, a validation token on the results of the comparison, and transmitting the validated results to a unit that requested verification of the vehicle usage data such that verification of the vehicle usage data can be performed by the unit that requested verification,
wherein in case of availability of a number of potential observer entities exceeding an upper threshold, types of the potential observer entities are determined by the vehicle, a selection of a subset of the observer entities is performed by the vehicle based on the determined types of the potential observer entities and the vehicle data is transmitted by the vehicle to the subset of observer entities, only.
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