A new report has detailed that Tesla staff accessed dashcam footage to make memes and jokes on internal message apps, despite telling customers otherwise.
Tesla, the electronic car manufacturer, has come under fire after a new Reuters report blew open the doors on a massive privacy scandal. The report details how Tesla employees would access dashcam footage from the cars, despite telling owners that “privacy is and will always be enormously important to us.”
Staff with access to the dashcam footage would share it on internal messaging systems, with footage accessed including mundane situations, to graphic crashes involving children.
The footage accessed of the child depicted a high-speed crash, as the Tesla collided with the bike, and the child. Speaking with Reuters, the footage allegedly spread like “wildfire”.
All this footage was obtained by those enlisted in helping the self-driving AI learn different aspects of the road, or through senior staff with the same level of access. Tesla fits its cars with a dashcam for security and self-driving purposes.
Tesla Sentry Mode and dashcam footage accessed without customer consent
Reuters also reports that multiple members of ex-staff of Tesla weren’t “bothered” by the sharing of the images. Reasons given included that an expectation of privacy with a company like Tesla isn’t something to be expected any longer. Others did mention being “troubled” by it.
One ex-staffer at Tesla did mention that they could see everything, including customers’ children and people doing laundry.
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In an interview with an anonymous ex-staff from the labeling team, they said:
“If you saw something cool that would get a reaction, you post it, right, and then later, on break, people would come up to you and say, ‘Oh, I saw what you posted. That was funny.
“People who got promoted to lead positions shared a lot of these funny items and gained notoriety for being funny.”
Tesla cars are now fitted with “Sentry Mode”, which activates when the car is touched. Previously, it was when the car’s onboard systems would detect something it deemed suspicious.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, had to defend the feature after it was banned in certain regions of China. He claimed that they would never spy on citizens, as it would result in cars being banned in the country.
The Netherlands and Germany have raised concerns surrounding the footage, with privacy bodies stating that it could be a risk to data privacy for citizens.
