Elon Musk’s company deliberately violated the privacy of its own customers by distributing personal videos

Tesla employees said that in some of the company’s offices, their former colleagues shared racy customer videos. All content was filmed on electric car cameras. By the way, the car owners did not suspect this. The incident was reported by Reuters.

Anonymous sources said that from 2019 to mid-2022, Tesla employees regularly abused their authority and violated customer privacy. The videos were of varying levels of «sensitivity»: from dogs and road signs to compromising situations with family members of Tesla owners. According to the employees interviewed, the more interesting the content, the more often it was shared.

All Tesla models are equipped with several cameras located throughout the car — 8 outside and 1 inside. Employees of Elon Musk’s company said that the videos mostly featured naked car owners, people stumbling and falling, and inept drivers. There were also videos of accidents and aggressive behavior on the road. However, the most shocking videos were those where a person was dragged into an electric car against his or her will.

The so-called «entertainment videos» were usually turned into memes and annotated. The content was distributed through Tesla’s internal messaging platform via personal chats, emails, or in small chat groups.

Tesla states on its website that car camera footage «remains anonymous and is not linked to the owner or their electric car.» However, the respondents noted that Tesla managers often ignored the company’s privacy policy. «Employees who have been promoted to management positions have shared many videos and gained popularity as a result,» said one employee.

Employees who have access to such videos are known as «labelers». In 2021, a senior director at One Tesla said that the company has a team of about 1,000 such specialists. Their job is to identify various objects in photos and videos. Then, the AI integrated into the electric car is trained on these materials so that it reacts in a timely and adequate manner in different situations on the road. Finally, this information is provided to engineers to improve Tesla’s autopilot systems.

It should be noted that Tesla has not yet provided any comments on the scandalous situation.