Tesla Under Germany's Scanner After Report Says Firm Failed to Protect Data From Customers, Employees

The data protection supervisory authority in the Netherlands, where Tesla's European headquarters is located, has been informed of the case.

By Reuters | Updated: 26 May 2023 18:13 IST

Tesla Under Germany's Scanner After Report Says Firm Failed to Protect Data From Customers, Employees

Photo Credit: Reuters

Tesla's European headquarters is located in the Netherlands

Highlights

Tesla has reportedly failed to adequately protect data from customers
100 gigabytes of confidential data leaked to the newspaper
Tesla filed a preliminary report to the Dutch authorities on the mat

German authorities have serious indications of possible data protection violations by Tesla, Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Thursday, citing the data protection office in the state where the carmaker has its European gigafactory.

Handelsblatt's report said the US electric car manufacturer has failed to adequately protect data from customers, employees, and business partners, citing 100 gigabytes of confidential data leaked to the newspaper by a whistleblower.

The data protection supervisory authority in the Netherlands, where Tesla's European headquarters is located, has been informed of the case, the newspaper said, adding that Tesla also filed a preliminary report to the Dutch authorities on the matter.

[Sponsored] Samsung Galaxy S24: The Ultimate Camera Phone With Smarter On-Device AI

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) stipulates that companies are obliged to do so if they fear personal data may have been leaked.

The Brandenburg data protection office was not immediately available for comment.

Tesla was not immediately available for comment on the report.

Lawsuit Claiming Musk Cheated Shareholders During Twitter Buyout Dismissed

Handelsblatt said customer data could be found "in abundance" in the data set, dubbed "Tesla Files".

The files include tables containing more than 100,000 names of former and current employees, including the social security number of Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, along with private email addresses, phone numbers, salaries of employees, bank details of customers and secret details from production.

The breach would violate the GDPR, the newspaper added.

Tesla 'Serious' on Setting Up Production in India: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Handelsblatt quoted a lawyer for Tesla as saying a "disgruntled former employee" had abused his access as a service technician to get information, adding that the company would take legal action against the suspected ex-employee.

The whistleblower notified the German authorities about the data protection breach in April, according to the newspaper.

The matter would become serious from a data protection point of view if the evidence becomes substantial, a spokesperson for Brandenburg data protection office was quoted as saying by Handelsblatt.

Citing the leaked files, the newspaper reported about thousands of customer complaints regarding the carmaker's driver assistance systems with around 4,000 complaints of sudden acceleration or phantom breaking.

Last month, a Reuters report showed that groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers' car cameras between 2019 and 2022.

This week, Facebook parent Meta was hit with a record 1.2 billion euro ($1.3 billion or roughly Rs. 9,606 crore) fine by its lead European Union privacy regulator over its handling of user information and given five months to stop transferring users' data to the US.

Samsung Galaxy A34 5G was recently launched by the company in India alongside the more expensive Galaxy A54 5G smartphone. How does this phone fare against the Nothing Phone 1 and the iQoo Neo 7? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.