Tesla hit with lawsuit over alleged privacy intrusion and inquiry into student accident

Privacy case comes after a report that Tesla employees privately shared sometimes invasive videos recorded by customers' car cameras

Since 2016, US authorities have opened 40 special crash investigations into Tesla. AP

A California Tesla owner on Friday sued the electric carmaker in a prospective class action lawsuit accusing it of violating the privacy of customers.

The lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California was filed after Reuters reported on Thursday that groups of Tesla employees privately shared by an internal messaging system sometimes invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras between 2019 and 2022.

The lawsuit, filed by Henry Yeh, a San Francisco resident who owns Tesla's Model Y, alleges that Tesla employees were able to access the images and videos for their “tasteless and tortious entertainment” and “the humiliation of those surreptitiously recorded”.

“Like anyone would be, Mr Yeh was outraged at the idea that Tesla's cameras can be used to violate his family's privacy, which the California Constitution scrupulously protects,” Jack Fitzgerald, a lawyer representing Mr Yeh, said in a statement to Reuters.

“Tesla needs to be held accountable for these invasions and for misrepresenting its lax privacy practices to him and other Tesla owners,” Mr Fitzgerald said.

The lawsuit said Tesla’s conduct is “particularly egregious” and “highly offensive”.

It said Mr Yeh was filing the complaint “against Tesla on behalf of himself, similarly-situated class members, and the general public”.

The complaint said the prospective class would include individuals who owned or leased a Tesla within the past four years.

It said some Tesla employees could see customers “doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids”, quoting a former employee.

“Indeed, parents’ interest in their children’s privacy is one of the most fundamental liberty interests society recognises,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit asks the court “to enjoin Tesla from engaging in its wrongful behaviour, including violating the privacy of customers and others, and to recover actual and punitive damages.”

Separately on Friday, US safety authorities said they are investigating whether an advanced driver assistance system was in use when a Tesla struck a 17-year-old pupil who was leaving a school bus in North Carolina.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it would open the special crash investigation into an incident in which 51-year-old driver of a 2022 Tesla Model Y in Halifax County on March 15 reportedly failed to stop for a school bus displaying warning lights and struck the pupil.

The driver was charged in the incident, according to local media quoting North Carolina State Police.

The NHTSA said Tesla's advanced driver assistance systems were suspected of being in use in the North Carolina crash.

Since 2016, the NHTSA has opened 40 Tesla special crash investigations where advanced driver assistance systems such as Autopilot were suspected of being used with 20 crash deaths reported. The agency has ruled out Tesla Autopilot use in three other special crash investigations.

Autopilot enables cars to steer, accelerate and brake within their lanes without driver intervention but Tesla said the feature requires “active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”

Last month, the NHTSA opened an investigation into a February fatal crash of a 2014 Tesla Model S involving a fire engine in Contra Costa County, California. The local fire department said a Tesla struck one of its vehicles and the Tesla driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

In June, the NHTSA upgraded to an engineering analysis its defect investigation into 830,000 Tesla vehicles with driver assistance system Autopilot that involves crashes with parked emergency vehicles including fire engines. That step is necessary before the agency could demand a recall.

The NHTSA is reviewing whether Tesla vehicles adequately ensure drivers are paying attention. Previously, the agency said evidence suggested drivers in many crashes under review had complied with Tesla's alert strategy that seeks to compel driver attention, raising questions about its effectiveness.