ATA, CVSA Call for Third-Party ELD Certification
Concern Grows About ELD Tampering Aimed at Circumventing HOS Limitations
Key Takeaways:
- Trucking companies and law enforcement are concerned about ELD tampering aimed at circumventing HOS limitations.
- ATA intends to work with FMCSA on third-party certification
- Some cases of ELD tampering have become sophisticated.
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American Trucking Associations and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance are calling for third-party certification of electronic logging devices to help prevent bad actors from illegally falsifying driver logbook data.
The push to strengthen ELD certification comes amid growing concern on the part of trucking companies, law enforcement and other industry stakeholders about ELD tampering aimed at circumventing driver hours-of-service limitations.
In some cases, this type of fraud is even being facilitated by rogue ELD vendors conspiring with noncompliant carriers to manipulate driver e-log data while leaving no record of those edits, several industry sources said.
Today, technology vendors only need to self-certify that their devices meet the technical standards of the federal ELD rule to register their products as compliant ELDs with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
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Additional scrutiny could help weed out noncompliant ELDs and dishonest technology suppliers, according to ATA and CVSA officials.
ATA recently updated its safety policy to support third-party certification of ELDs and oversight such as auditing and monitoring of registered devices to prevent fraud by drivers, carriers or ELD providers. The changes were advanced by ATA’s Safety Policy Committee and approved by its board of directors on Oct. 28 at its 2025 Management Conference & Exhibition in San Diego.
While the exact structure of a potential third-party certification process has not yet taken shape, ATA intends to work with FMCSA on this issue.
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“Obviously the details matter, but as a general idea, having a little more scrutiny on the front end of the process can create a barrier to entry for bad actors or people who are not intending to play by the rules,” said Kevin Grove, ATA’s director of safety and technology policy.
Earlier this year, CVSA discovered some instances of fraud that involved not just a fleet or driver trying to manipulate logs, but an ELD provider facilitating the fraud by editing the logs and not providing records of those edits, he said.
ELD noncompliance ultimately is a safety matter, added Brenna Lyles, ATA’s senior director of safety policy.
“It’s fraud, but the fraud leads to serious safety issues,” she said. “If drivers are looking for ways around hours of service and evading hours of service, that’s the core issue. The fraud is concerning, but the safety implications are really what’s at the forefront.”
Most commercial truck drivers are required to use federally mandated ELDs to electronically record driving time and duty status information. ELDs replaced paper logbooks and older e-log systems when the federal ELD mandate began in late 2017 and took full effect in late 2019.
Canada’s Approach
A third-party certification process for ELDs would bring the U.S. into closer alignment with the approach that Canada has taken with its own ELD mandate, which began in June 2021 with full enforcement starting in early 2023.
The Canadian government’s transportation department, Transport Canada, requires ELDs to undergo testing and certification by an authorized third-party testing organization — currently either FPInnovations or COMDriver Tech — to qualify for its list of approved devices.
Over time, the online ELD registry maintained by FMCSA has ballooned to more than 1,000 distinct ELDs, along with another 300-plus revoked devices — mostly older systems self-revoked by vendors but also some removed from the list by FMCSA.
Transport Canada, in contrast, currently has 113 devices listed on its ELD registry.
ATA’s Lyles noted that FMCSA recently has become more active in removing devices from its ELD portal.
“There has definitely been an uptick over the past several months,” she said.
Registered ELDs can be revoked for various reasons, including the vendor going out of business or no longer having a functioning website, for example.
CVSA also supports third-party ELD certification and additional oversight to ensure the devices are accurate and reliable, said Jeremy Disbrow, a roadside inspection specialist at the organization.
“CVSA strongly believes that ELD vendors need to have a level playing field to ensure all devices meet the minimum standards that prevent the manipulation of data,” he said. “We applaud FMCSA’s efforts to identify these ELD providers and revoke their certifications, but unfortunately, these vendors frequently start the process over under a new name and continue their operation.”
Disbrow said CVSA is currently pursuing legislation that would require FMCSA to establish and administer an ELD certification process.
“Third-party certification, overseen by FMCSA, could be a potential solution to limit an ELD vendor’s ability to create devices that are prone to tampering,” he said.
Most ELD providers work diligently to ensure their devices meet the technical specifications of the ELD rule, “but not all of them do,” Disbrow said. “These bad actors create an environment that promotes fatigued driving, which poses a hazard for all motorists.”
ELD Tampering
Some cases of ELD fraud have become quite sophisticated, he said.
“Tampered ELDs usually look perfect, and it is often difficult and time-consuming to identify instances of ELD tampering during a roadside inspection,” Disbrow said. “In many cases, the ELD providers are not only manipulating the information within the ELD, but they are also manipulating the information on the shipping papers and other supporting documents to match the fraudulent entries within the ELD.”
Inspectors often can check additional data sources to determine the accuracy of time records, but querying those resources takes additional time, which can cause delays for reputable motor carriers, he said.
Carriers that violate HOS limitations also gain an unfair competitive advantage because they can run more miles at a lower cost than compliant carriers that follow the rules.
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Some transportation companies — especially foreign-owned entities operating in the U.S. — have found ways to “blatantly cheat” on HOS and other rules due to insufficient enforcement, said Zach Meiborg, CEO of Meiborg Cos., a midsized truckload carrier and logistics provider based in Rockford, Ill.
“The largest one that hurts us is the e-log compliance,” he said.
Meiborg said that certain noncompliant ELD vendors are fueling the fraud by collaborating with carriers to attribute portions of a trip to a fictitious “ghost driver,” enabling the real driver who has run out of drive time to continue operating on a fresh set of hours on the ELD.
He estimated that noncompliant carriers can operate as much as 50 cents per mile cheaper than the rest of the industry by skirting HOS rules and racking up significantly more miles.
This is especially harmful to compliant carriers at a time when the trucking industry continues to struggle through a prolonged freight rate recession driven by excess truck capacity.
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In this challenging environment, Meiborg’s asset-based trucking business has operated at a $9 million loss during the past 3½ years, he said, adding that the company’s other businesses — warehousing, freight brokerage and fleet maintenance and repairs — have subsidized its trucking operations.
Cracking down on noncompliant carriers would help lawful trucking businesses secure fairer freight rates.
“We can fix the problem with profitability in trucking by just getting the cheaters out,” Meiborg said.
