This is revealed by the news agency Reuters in a lengthy review of the automaker. Employees have shared video clips with each other in an internal chat without the car owners’ knowledge. This took place between the years 2019 and 2022. Tesla has assured its millions of car owners that their privacy “is and always will be hugely important to us. The vehicles’ built-in cameras are there to make driving easier and are designed from the ground up to protect your privacy.”
Some of the recordings depicted embarrassing situations. A former employee described a video in which a man approached a vehicle completely naked. But even worse types of clips were shared. A video from 2021 shows one driving at high speed in a residential area and hitting a child on a bicycle. Other clips were more mundane, like pictures of dogs or just generally bad drivers that employees turned into memes.
Tesla states in its “Privacy notice for customers” that any data collected “is not linked to your identity or account”. But seven former employees tell Reuters that the computer program they used at work was able to show the location of the recordings – potentially revealing where a Tesla owner lives.
