Tesla Staff Shared Saucy Snaps of Customers (Sources Say)
Tesla employees mocked and memeified private photos and videos. Firm’s message boards were full of the stuff.
After interviewing nine ex-employees, Reuters is on the record, alleging gross misconduct inside Tesla: “Private camera recordings, captured by cars, were shared in chat rooms.”
The privacy violations described are astonishing—if true. In today’s SB Blogwatch, we break out the duct tape.
Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: I Don’t Exist.
I Guess I’m Banned From Twitter Now
What’s the craic? Steve Stecklow, Waylon Cunningham and Hyunjoo Jin report—“Tesla workers shared sensitive images”:
“Musk didn’t respond”
Groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras, according to … nine former employees. [We can’t] determine if the practice of sharing recordings, which occurred within some parts of Tesla as recently as last year, continues today.
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Two ex-employees said they weren’t bothered … saying that customers had given their consent or that people long ago had given up any reasonable expectation of keeping personal data private. … “I sometimes wondered if these people know that we’re seeing that,” said [another]. “I saw some scandalous stuff sometimes … scenes of intimacy,” … said another. “And … definitely a lot of stuff that … I wouldn’t want anybody to see,” … such as “certain pieces of laundry, certain sexual wellness items.”
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Tesla didn’t respond to detailed questions. … Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment. … Tesla Inc assures its millions of electric car owners … on its website … that their privacy “is and will always be enormously important to us.”
I’m shocked—SHOCKED! Nope, Jay Stanley isn’t, either—“Tesla Camera Scandal”:
“We need good privacy laws”
[It’s] unsurprising, because this is a pattern that has happened repeatedly for many years. Unfortunately, today, when you accept some company’s recording devices into your life, you lose control of your privacy. … Examples abound.
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Where AI is part of a company’s product, that company will always have a strong incentive to look at customer data in order to improve the training of its algorithms. In the case of Tesla, it appears to have been employee curiosity and gawking — though … the reason Tesla collects video is to allow human “data labelers” to sift through images taken by its cars for AI training. In other cases, perhaps, people at companies can’t resist engaging in surveillance even with no specific purpose.
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So people should continue to be very deliberate about buying products with Internet-connected cameras or microphones. … Everyone needs to be more aware of the current risks. Companies need to be clear about what kind of data they are collecting and exactly how they’re using it. … And above all, we need good privacy laws to give some teeth to the good practices that people have every right to expect.
Examples abound, you say? ryanja imagines the scene:
(Ring and Roomba hanging out)
Ring: So, what’s up?
Roomba: Nothing much. Wondering who else is going to be busted taking pictures of kids, families, and other private moments and having them shared all around the office without user consent.
/Tesla has entered the chat
Here we go again? Sam Richman despairs:
“Just one of countless examples”
At what point will people decide that their privacy isn’t worth sacrificing at the altar of technology? … Here is yet another example of indiscriminate data collection that ends up inappropriately used. … Bulk collection of data without a direct use-case and well-defined data lifecycle (creation, classification, processing, and secure destruction) makes everyone vulnerable.
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I very much doubt that the average Tesla owner knows that images/clips of them are even being stored, let alone reviewed by anyone. … This is just one of countless examples of data collection that is occurring without the explicit consent of users.
If true, it’s a failure of company culture. JeremyNT’s mind is “boggled”:
“Rotten to the very core”
The kind of nonsense described … is exactly what I’d expect from an early stage software startup back in the early ’00s). … It was common to mock people and create memes for any reason (the Basecamp “foreign sounding name” kerfuffle very much reminds me of this).
This kind of culture was unacceptable back then, of course, but the founders and owners were little more than children themselves. It was at least understandable if not excusable.
What completely boggles my mind is that, some 20 years later, this kind of culture is still happening. And … it’s happening at a wildly successful car company … run by the richest man in the world. The culture at Tesla must be rotten to the very core.
Ouch. Saying similar stuff, Sarty is less wordy:
In 2016, I would have been shocked. In 2023, I recognize that fish rot from the head, that Tesla … culture attracts exactly the sort of people who would do this.
Who will cut to the chase? Will Oremus will (on Twitter, no less):
“Tesla’s internal culture”
Tesla employees internally shared and joked about highly invasive videos of Tesla customers recorded by their own cars. … Reminder that this website and all your direct messages are owned by the same person who runs Tesla.
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Here we have two kinds of Tesla employees: The ones who see nothing wrong with spying on customers without their consent, and the ones who think it’s wrong but keep it a secret anyway. … At least a few of the people in the tech industry who tell you “privacy is dead” or “no one cares about privacy,” it turns out, may be the same ones who would gleefully share and laugh at videos of you naked that their company secretly recorded.
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It looks like sharing, mocking and meme-ifying private footage of Tesla customers … was not something done by a few bad apples. It was part of the fabric of Tesla’s internal culture.
How about the product? submeta couldn’t care less:
I wouldn’t want to touch a Tesla even if it was gifted to me. Seeing [Musk] behave the way he does (latest incident: Changing Twitter’s logo to a ****coins image) makes him extremely unsympathetic to me.
Meanwhile, neither could ERIFNOMI:
My list of reasons I will never buy a Tesla continues to grow.
And Finally:
You have been reading SB Blogwatch by Richi Jennings. Richi curates the best bloggy bits, finest forums, and weirdest websites … so you don’t have to. Hate mail may be directed to @RiCHi or [email protected]. Ask your doctor before reading. Your mileage may vary. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Do not stare into laser with remaining eye. E&OE. 30.
Image sauce: Joe Rogan
