Big Tesla Is Spying on You, Say Ex-Employees

There is a dark side to Tesla's camera systems that we're only beginning to understand.

As some cars continue to rely on sensors, Tesla has been insistent that AI and its Tesla camera systems are the real future. The reliance on cameras does have a few upsides, like losing some gaudy looking sensor instrumentation and the ability to function as a sentry, monitoring everything that happens inside and around your EV. Unfortunately, it seems that this system comes as a double-edged sword, and several ex-Tesla employees revealed how they were not only able to get unsolicited videos and images, but also share them around with other employees.

According to the report from Reuters, from around 2019 to 2022 Tesla employees privately shared these intimate videos and images recorded by their customers' cars—without their knowledge or permission. Allegedly this all took place on an internal messaging system from within Elon Musk's company. Some of these images were innocuous, but some were rather private—and disturbing.

One ex-employee recounted a video of a man walking towards his vehicle while completely nude, oblivious that his car was recording him the entire time and equally unaware that such a personal moment was exploited for laughs. Another, captured in 2021, was a driving incident where a Tesla was driving at high speed through a residential area, with the car's cameras capturing the Tesla hitting a child on a bicycle, sending the kid flying one way and their bicycle going the other.

You're probably thinking about Tesla's strong stance on privacy, specifically that its claims captured videos and images couldn't be used to identify anyone. It even says this in its "Customer Privacy Notice" stating, "camera recordings remain anonymous and are not linked to you or your vehicle." Unfortunately, your identity isn't always confirmed by just your face alone. For one, the system that Tesla uses does record vehicle location information. As if that wasn't enough, several years ago, Tesla could also get recordings of vehicles when they were turned off. While owners had to provide consent—and Tesla has stopped the practice altogether—it wouldn't take much for an employee with bad intentions to potentially forge that and get recordings anyhow.

Another ex-employee recalled a story about a video showing the white Lotus Esprit sub used in the 1977 James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, and owned by Elon Musk himself. According to Reuters, Musk didn't respond to their requests to confirm this story nor if he was aware of this video being shared around Tesla's employee instant messaging system. We also tried contacting Tesla's intentionally nonexistent press department and, unsurprisingly, didn't get a response. Which only fuels our concerns on their handling of sensitive data and their real stance on privacy protections.

While these are only allegations by an ex-employee, it raises some troubling issues. As one ex-employee told Reuters, "It was a breach of privacy, to be honest. And I always joked that I would never buy a Tesla after seeing how they treated some of these people." Or, as another put it, "... I don't think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected … We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids."