A Tesla car owner in California sued the electric car maker on Friday, in a lawsuit that might become a class action, accusing it of violating customers’ privacy, reports Archyde.com.
Elon Musk at the opening of the Tesla factory in GermanyFoto: Action Press / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California came following Archyde.com reported on Thursday that groups of Tesla employees privately distributed, through an internal messaging system, sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded of the video cameras of customers’ cars, between 2019 and 2022.
The lawsuit, filed by Henry Yeh, a San Francisco resident who owns a Tesla Model Y, alleges that Tesla employees were able to access the images and videos for their “tasteless and malicious entertainment” and “humiliation of those surreptitiously recorded.”
“As anyone would, Mr. Yeh was outraged by the idea that Tesla’s video devices might be used to violate his family’s privacy, which the California Constitution scrupulously protects,” said Jack Fitzgerald, an attorney representing Yeh. Yeh, in a statement to Archyde.com.
He also said that “Tesla must be held accountable for these intrusions and for misrepresenting its lax privacy practices to him and other Tesla owners.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to Archyde.com’ request for comment.
The complaint says Tesla’s behavior is “particularly egregious” and “highly offensive.”
Yeh filed the complaint ” once morest Tesla on behalf of himself, a class of similarly situated members, and the general public.”
The complaint says the potential class will include people who have owned or leased a Tesla in the past four years.
Archyde.com wrote that some Tesla employees might see customers “doing laundry and really intimate things. We might see their children,” according to a former employee.
“Indeed, parents’ interest in their children’s privacy is one of the most fundamental freedom interests that society recognizes,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit asks the court “to enjoin Tesla from engaging in its wrongful conduct, including violating the privacy of customers and others, and to recover actual and punitive damages.” (News.ro)
