The built-in cameras of Tesla vehicles are there to enable the self-driving feature. These can also record the car's surrounding for any untoward incidents that may happen while the car is parked. However, it appears that the camera recordings have also become a source of laughter for Tesla employees, who have reportedly shared these videos even though some of these clips are private and sensitive.
Some Tesla Employees Were Able to Create Memes out of Tesla Vehicles' Private Recordings, Sources Say
First reported by Reuters, insider sources revealed that Tesla staff have access to private videos from Tesla vehicle cameras. These videos have been passed on from one employee to another via Tesla's internal message groups from 2019 to 2022.
The sources told Reuters that some recordings are from road rage incidents, while there is one embarrassing video that shows a naked man walking towards the vehicle. Using these videos, some Tesla employees have reportedly made memes out of these sensitive recordings and shared them in their private group chats to elicit some laughs.
In a separate scoop from Insider, former Tesla staffer John Bernal confirmed that the company's employees could indeed access the owners' car video recordings. Since the staff could peek through the owners' private lives using their own cameras, Bernal said that the experience is like "having access to god's eye."
"I saw some people using their cars to walk their horses out in the Netherlands, like on a farm. We saw engineers screwing around with cars and homeless people trying to push shopping carts into them," Bernal told Insider as he recounted some of the impactful videos that he and his co-workers have seen from the Tesla car owners' recordings.
"Sometimes the only way we could get through the day was making these memes," Bernal added. Apart from making fun of the humorous video captures from the Tesla cameras, some employees are using these clips to take a jab at the Tesla CEO himself, Elon Musk.
Related Article: Tesla Rolls Out Full Self-Driving Beta V11 Update; Latest Version Combines FSD and Autopilot Features
Tesla Adjusts Sentry Mode Feature To Address Privacy Concerns
Tesla once was authorized to receive recordings from the vehicle cameras if the owners agreed to it. However, it was found out after an investigation by the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) that the car cameras have been recording everyone who came close to the car. With this, Tesla implemented a new system in 2023 to turn off these cameras by default.
The ability to record the Tesla vehicle's surroundings is due to Sentry Mode, which was first introduced by the EV company in 2019. The feature is made for the owners to see any suspicious movements from people who are near their parked vehicles. The recordings are stored in the onboard memory. In 2021, a tweak in this feature was applied that allowed drivers to do a livestream using the car cameras.
However, Tesla noted that the Sentry Mode videos are not forwarded to the company's database. It also claimed that the livestreams are "end-to-end encrypted" so the company has no access to these recordings.
Following the DPA investigation, Tesla recently applied changes to the Sentry Mode. This time, cameras would only start recording when the vehicle is touched, unlike in the previous system where the recording starts upon detection of suspicious activity.
