Tesla cars are known for their futuristic features, one such feature being the autonomous driving and autopilot technique included in Tesla vehicles. The demand for Tesla vehicles is increasing year after year and in the last year alone the company earned over $81 billion in revenue. There are cameras placed at all angles of the car to assist these driving features and a recent investigative study conducted by Reuters suggests that Tesla employees used to share the videos recorded by the vehicles amongst each other and sometimes make memes using them. The nature of the content that was shared varied from intriguing objects that a vehicle would acquire while driving to road rage incidents and car accidents among other serious and graphic scenes.
Ex-Tesla employee’s revelations:
Although Tesla claims that whatever your vehicle shoots is anonymous content, former workers in the company have claimed that the software used in their offices was capable of accessing the camera feed and they have seen content not only from a time when a car was on the move but also what looks like content captured when it was turned off. Earlier, the car company was able to access the footage from the cameras placed by them even if the vehicle was turned off but only if the owner had consented to such operations. Some employees also claim to have come across a video of an interesting vehicle parked inside a closed space that was used in a famous James Bond movie, what makes it even more interesting is the fact that the vehicle was actually bought by CEO Elon in 2013. A former worker also said that being aware of the privacy concerns that surround Tesla, he would never buy a car manufactured by his former employer. Another claimed that he was not comfortable with the idea that others were able to access the data that users of the car were not aware was being recorded. However, some have claimed that the only times a video was shared on a group chat or to a colleague, it was to discuss an issue that was needed to be resolved.
Prevalence:
The findings claim that between the years 2019 and 2022, such incidents were prevalent inside Tesla offices where employees shared memes and other videos recorded by the vehicles of their clients among each other using an internal messaging system. The prevalence of similar privacy breach incidents by workers in the company as of now cannot be manifested but it is best to be aware of the fact that the cameras attached to your car can be easily accessed by the car company or were accessible in the past.
