- A recent Reuters report documented Tesla employees privately sharing recordings from customer vehicles, some of which showed them during intimate or embarrassing situations, between 2019 and 2022.
- Now, one Model Y owner is suing the automaker for invading customers’ privacy for “tasteless and tortious entertainment”.
- The lawsuit says Tesla’s conduct and that of its employees in this case is “particularly egregious”.
- Tesla, for its part, has long insisted that customer privacy is one of its top priorities.
- As it does not have a media relations team, the company typically does not respond to requests for comment — and did not do so in this case, either.
Tesla faces a new lawsuit from an owner alleging the automaker invaded customers’ privacy rights.
Last week, Reuters published a special report documenting Tesla employees sharing videos recorded by customer cars through an internal messaging system between 2019 and 2022. Over those three years, some recordings caught owners in accidents, road-rage incidents and more intimate, sometimes embarrassing situations, according to interviews with nine employees.
As a result of these revelations, one California Tesla owner filed a lawsuit against the EV manufacturer on Friday. Henry Yeh filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging Tesla employees accessed the videos and shared them within the company for their “tasteless and tortious entertainment”. The “humiliation of those surreptitiously recorded,” the lawsuit says, is a basis by which the company should be held liable.
Per a second Reuters report, Yeh’s attorney, Jack Fitzgerald, gave a statement on the pending litigation. “Like anyone would be, Mr. Yeh was outraged at the idea that Tesla’s cameras can be used to violate his family’s privacy, which the California Constitution scrupulously protects. Tesla need to be held accountable for these invasions and misrepresenting its lax privacy practicies to him and other Tesla owners.”
The complaint could become a class action, as Yeh filed the lawsuit “against Tesla on behalf of himself, similarly-situated class members, and the general public.”
“Your privacy is and always will be enormously important to us”
While Tesla has not directly responded to the allegations, at time of writing, it does make several public-facing statements regarding its privacy practices on its retail website. In its “Consumer Privacy Notice,” the company says that “camera recordings remain anonymous and are not linked to you or your vehicle.” However, employees told Reuters that software they used to access camera footage did show location data, which could reveal where owners live.
Tesla collects a vast amount of data from its vehicles for developing its “Full Self-Driving” technology. The Consumer Privacy Notice also says that, should customers consent to share data, “your vehicle may collect the data and make it available to Tesla for analysis. This analysis helps Tesla improve its products, features, and diagnose problems easier.” That may include “short video clips or images”, but the company’s terms maintain that such data does not personally identify owners.
Regulators scrutinized Tesla’s camera systems over the past few years.
Another potential privacy issue centers around the cars’ “Sentry Mode”, which records passers-by who may be unaware that they’re being recorded. When Tesla first rolled out the feature, it said Sentry Mode will record suspicious activity around the vehicle and alert the owner.
Nevertheless, Yeh’s lawsuit aims to hold Tesla accountable for how it treats certain data it receives from camera-equipped vehicles. The complaint seeks to “enjoin Tesla from engaging in its wrongful behavior, including violating the privacy of customers and others, and to recover actual and punitive damages.”
We’ll be sure to post any updates to this case as new information emerges. Regardless of this case’s outcome, complaints alleging invasions of privacy are almost certain to become more common as newer vehicles feature more cameras, both inside and out.
Speaking of new electric vehicles, we have a new test on our TFLEV channel that you can watch below:
