Former Tesla employees reveal sharing of sensitive customer car images by company workers

Tesla employees have reportedly been sharing sensitive images and videos recorded by customer cars via an internal messaging system, according to Reuters interviews with nine former employees.

Some of the videos recorded embarrassing situations, such as a man approaching a vehicle completely naked, while others captured crashes and road-rage incidents. Some recordings even appeared to have been made when cars were parked and turned off, according to one former employee.

"We could see inside people's garages and their private properties,” said one former employee. “Let's say that a Tesla customer had something in their garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post those kinds of things."

Once even Musk's unique submersible vehicle parked inside a garage has been spotted. The vehicle was bought by Musk at an auction in 2013 for $968,000. There is no confirmation that he is aware of the collected data.

While some postings were only shared between two employees, others could be seen by scores of them. The news agency was not able to obtain any of the shared videos or images, and it is unclear whether the practice of sharing recordings, which occurred within some parts of Tesla as recently as last year, continues today or how widespread it was.

Tesla has assured its customers that their privacy is important to the company and that the cameras built into its vehicles are designed to protect privacy. Some former employees, however, said that the only sharing they observed was for legitimate work purposes, such as seeking assistance from colleagues or supervisors.