Tesla faces a new controversy, in this case in relation to the privacy of its customers, after several employees of the North American firm shared intimate images of some of the owners of their vehicles in various internal chats.
It is a security breach that undermines the reputation of the company that had assured the millions of owners of its electric cars that the cameras of the autonomous driving system were "designed from the ground up to protect" their privacy. "A principle that is, and always will be, important to us," the company noted.
According to Reuters, between 2019 and 2022, a group of Tesla employees privately shared, through an internal messaging system, "sometimes very invasive videos and images recorded by customers' car cameras" and between in which there are several "embarrassing" situations starring naked people.
"Videos have been released in intimate situations in which sex toys were identified...", recounted one of the witnesses. "There was a lot of content of the kind that I wouldn't want anyone to ever see."
Although among the shared images there are also accidents such as the one that was registered in 2021 when a Tesla that was driving at high speed in a residential area hit a child who was riding a bicycle. "The kid flew in one direction, the bike in another," one of the former employees associated with Tesla's San Mateo, California, office.
Former workers consulted by Reuters have confirmed that they were able to find out the locations of those images, potentially posing a risk to the driver's privacy. In fact, the possibility slips that even with the vehicle turned off the cameras were capable of recording images.
"It bothers me because I don't think the people who buy the car know that their privacy is not respected," adds one of the testimonials.
"We could see the inside of people's garages and their private properties," says another of the testimonies. "Let's say if a Tesla customer had something in his garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post that kind of thing." According to what was reported, even Elon Musk himself could have been the object of spying on his cars.
The company, however, ensures that these contents have not been published and that they remain anonymous despite the fact that they circulated through internal chats or could have been used for training the vehicles' artificial intelligence systems.
