Trading Standards officers have been paying unannounced visits to car servicing garages over the past week on the hunt for illegal and unlicensed vehicle diagnostic software.

Senior Cornwall Trading Standards officer, Gary Webster said: “The servicing and repair of modern cars often requires specialist diagnostic equipment and computer software.

"We are concerned that garages may be tempted to use illegal copies of the software which not only gives them an unfair commercial advantage over their competitors, but also potentially puts the safety of their customers at risk.

"Many of these copied versions are very out of date, and don’t flag up any current safety and recall warnings for specific vehicles.”

The officers have been working with specialists from the motor industry to identify users of the illegal software and raise awareness of the issues with garage owners. Where unlicensed copies have been found, the owners have been asked to remove the software voluntarily.

Gary added: “We know that garages have been approached by individuals offering to install the software at a very low price. In some cases the illegal software installation has caused conflicts with other programs and introduced computer viruses.

"On this occasion we have been offering an amnesty to those garage operators found in possession of unlicensed systems, provided that they agreed to the removal of the software on the spot. In future, anyone found to be knowingly using unlicensed software of this kind may face prosecution.”

Garages who think that they may have got unlicensed or illegal copies of diagnostic software are urged to contact Trading Standards on 0300 1234 191, who will put them in touch with the relevant specialists to assist in the removal of the product.