They even shared a clip of a child being hit by a car:
Some Tesla workers shared sensitive photos and videos captured by the cameras on owners' cars between each other for several years, according to Reuters. Former employees told the outlet that colleagues shared the images in group chats and one-on-one communications between 2019 and last year.
One such video showed a Tesla driving at high speed before hitting a child on a bike, Reuters reported. Other footage included things like a nude man walking toward a vehicle. "We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids," one of the former employees said.
[...] The company states in its customer privacy notice that it designed the camera system to protect user privacy. It says that even if owners opt in to share camera recordings with Tesla for "fleet learning" purposes, "camera recordings remain anonymous and are not linked to you or your vehicle" unless it receives the footage due to a safety event, such as a crash or an airbag deployment. Even so, one employee said it was possible for Tesla data labelers to see the location of captured footage on Google Maps.
Tesla does not have a communications department that can be reached for comment.
(Score: 5, Funny) by sonamchauhan on Wednesday April 12, @12:05AM (2 children)
> Tesla does not have a communications department that can be reached for comment.
Try Twitter!
(Score: 5, Funny) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday April 12, @01:38AM (1 child)
Emailing press at twitter.com returns a poop emoji. :)
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Thursday April 13, @12:58PM
That's seriously whacky!
But I meant requesting comment from Tesla on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tesla [twitter.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 12, @12:24AM (5 children)
Your stuff's safe in the cloud! But, only if you own the cloud, and no one else can get access.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @01:21AM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @02:31AM (1 child)
Also pixelating faces before saving the video, so face recordings aren't automatically recognized by other cloud systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @03:33AM
Also the stuff/team that's doing the pixelation might be saving some "debug info" by "accident". 😏
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday April 12, @01:29AM (1 child)
It would not surprise me one bit if less than two decades from now car purchases will no longer be allowed, lease or rent only. I think that will come when self-driving cars become ubiquitous. The good news is I'm wrong a lot.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @10:59PM
Would it surprize you one bit if sea levels rise, reservoirs dry out and the wealthy live in gated communes while the rest of us duke it out Mad Max style in the desert wastelands?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday April 12, @03:40AM (1 child)
privacy has been thrown out the window 25 years ago, but somehow people only become outraged when the snoops get found out.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Vocal Minority on Wednesday April 12, @04:12AM
Or when someone they don't like is doing it....
(Score: 5, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Wednesday April 12, @06:34AM (6 children)
So if they capture teen sex on the back seat of a Tesla, does that mean Tesla is now guilty of producing and possessing child porn?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @09:52PM (3 children)
I would imagine the safest course of action for Tesla (or any other car or smart-house company, although you are ignoring all of those) would be to immediately turn such videos over to law enforcement so they can prosecute the statutory rapist(s) involved.
(Score: 1) by mce on Thursday April 13, @12:06AM (1 child)
It's not that easy. There are jurisdictions on this planet where teens can legally have sex (with mutual consent) at ages that would still cause producing/possessing a recording of the activity production/possession of child porn.
(Score: 1) by mce on Thursday April 13, @12:13AM
... Not to mention that Tesla would be in possession of the video material in the US and as such would be subject to the US law.
So even if the recording would legally not be considered child porn in the country of origin, Tesla would still be in violation of the law.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 15, @05:53AM
This story was about Tesla. Had this story been about any other company doing this, I would have made the comment about that company.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by mce on Thursday April 13, @12:19AM (1 child)
This raises another question. Let's say the car owner has agreed to Tesla's privacy policy and (knowingly or unknowingly) agreed to have the car upload video material. Now consider the case of his 18+ son or daughter going at it in or near the car with an equally 18+ partner and Tesla ending up with a recording. The son/daughter did not agree to that and - since they are not minors - it can also not be claimed that their father/mother was/is entitled to act and agree to the policy on their child's behalf.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13, @07:56AM
You can come up with worse scenarios than that. Two seventeen year olds going at it is legal just about everywhere. Video of them doing it is child porn just about everywhere.