Tesla staff sharing in-car customer images

Do you own a Tesla electric vehicle? If yes, then this news piece could be of interest to you. According to research conducted by Reuters, private recordings of individual Tesla car customers are being shared by former employees via chat rooms and other resources.

The circulated clips include a child being hit by a car, a couple having an intimate experience in the cabin, a Tesla customer washing her vehicle almost unclothed, and some private conversations taking place before the car when the vehicle was halted.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has issued a press statement immediately claiming that all recordings remain anonymous and securely stored and encrypted on their servers.

Technically, all vehicles manufactured by the electric car manufacturer are equipped with cameras as they assist in driving and are called self-driving or autonomous vehicles.

Recordings streamlined from the cameras are stored on the servers where utmost privacy is maintained. However, Reuters’ recent study suggests that contrary practices were being followed by the company’s employees between 2019 and 2022, where they were able to share and circulate images and videos from any of their cars via an internal messaging system.

The news resource claims that the shared images and videos recorded by customer car cameras were sometimes highly invasive, as at least nine of the firm’s former employees admitted to such practices being followed in the company since 2016.

Tesla’s ‘Customer Privacy Notice’ states that all its vehicle camera recordings remain anonymous. But two of the battery vehicle manufacturers agree that their cars often leak location details to them, thus revealing the identity of the owner living in the vicinity.

So, under such circumstances, whom should be blamed? Is it the car, the user, or the employee/s?

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