An eye-opening report has detailed a privacy-abusing culture among groups of Tesla employees tasked with sensitive data analysis.
An eye-opening report has detailed a privacy-abusing culture among groups of Tesla employees tasked with sensitive data analysis. These employees are alleged to have passed “highly invasive videos and images” from customers’ vehicles around the office using Tesla’s internal messaging system. These practices seem to defy the company’s “Customer Privacy Notice,” which begs the question of how these violations became so widespread.
Reuters contacted more than 300 former Tesla employees during the course of its investigation and received responses from more than a dozen. These anonymous ex-employees were involved with the development of Tesla’s self-driving systems. As part of this process, Tesla employs data labelers who are tasked with identifying and tagging subjects and objects within footage recorded by customers’ cars. This work is necessary to train the software’s object recognition capabilities.Tesla has been up front about the existence of this program and has assured users that their data would be appropriately anonymized and protected. Tesla does require customers to opt-out of collecting vehicle data (video and images included), stating, “By default, Tesla provides this seamless experience while protecting your privacy” in its Customer Privacy Notice, and that, “This analysis helps Tesla improve its products, features, and diagnose problems quicker.” The policy as-written is fair-enough, but privacy demands more than lip-service.Snippet from Tesla’s Customer Privacy Notice
The ex-employees allege that during a period spanning from at least 2019 to 2022, it became commonplace for recordings of customers’ embarrassing situations, crashes and road-rage incidents, and other private moments to be spread “like wildfire” around the office.
