How Some of Elon Musk's Tesla Employees Violated Customer Privacy

Irresponsible behavior regarding images taken from Tesla drivers' cars has been reported.

A report about employee behavior at Elon Musk's Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report is raising concerns.

The actions involve employees' improper use of images recorded by the company's customers on their car cameras.

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"Between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras," Reuters reported nine customers as saying. 

Here's how Reuters reported a few specific instances:

Some of the recordings caught Tesla customers in embarrassing situations. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked.

Also shared: crashes and road-rage incidents. One crash video in 2021 showed a Tesla driving at high speed in a residential area hitting a child riding a bike, according to another ex-employee. The child flew in one direction, the bike in another. The video spread around a Tesla office in San Mateo, California, via private one-on-one chats, “like wildfire,” the ex-employee said.

Other images were more mundane, such as pictures of dogs and funny road signs that employees made into memes by embellishing them with amusing captions or commentary, before posting them in private group chats. While some postings were only shared between two employees, others could be seen by scores of them, according to several ex-employees.

In Tesla's Customer Privacy Notice, the company states that, "In order for camera recordings for fleet learning to be shared with Tesla, your consent for Data Sharing is required and can be controlled through the vehicle’s touchscreen at any time. Even if you choose to opt-in, unless we receive the data as a result of a safety event (a vehicle collision or airbag deployment) -- camera recordings remain anonymous and are not linked to you or your vehicle."

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