Tesla Faces Class Action Lawsuit for Allegedly Violating Customer Privacy
A Tesla owner from California filed a prospective class action lawsuit against the electric carmaker on Friday, accusing it of violating customers’ privacy. The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California comes after a Reuters report revealed that groups of Tesla employees shared highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras through an internal messaging system between 2019 and 2022.
The plaintiff, Henry Yeh, owns Tesla’s Model Y and alleges that the company’s employees accessed the images and videos for their “tasteless and tortious entertainment” and to “humiliate” those who were surreptitiously recorded. Yeh’s attorney, Jack Fitzgerald, said Tesla needs to be held accountable for its privacy invasion and misrepresenting its privacy practices to customers.
The lawsuit seeks to enjoin Tesla from violating customers’ privacy and to recover actual and punitive damages. The complaint requests that the court consider Yeh’s case and other similarly-situated class members who owned or leased a Tesla within the past four years. According to a former employee, some Tesla employees could see customers doing “intimate things” and their children through the cameras. The lawsuit describes Tesla’s conduct as “particularly egregious” and “highly offensive.” Tesla has not yet responded to Reuters’ request for comment.
