A Tesla owner in California sued the electric car maker on Friday, in what could become a class action lawsuit, accusing it of violating customer privacy, Reuters reported.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, came after Reuters reported on Thursday that groups of Tesla employees privately exchanged sometimes highly offensive videos and images recorded from customers’ car cameras between 2019 and 2019. and 2022.

The lawsuit, filed by Henry Yeh, a San Francisco resident who owns a Tesla Model Y, alleges that Tesla employees had access to the images and videos for their “tasteless and malicious entertainment” and the “humiliation of the secretly recorded.”

“Like anyone, Mr. Yeh was outraged by the idea that Tesla’s video devices could be used to invade his family’s privacy, which is carefully protected by the California Constitution,” Jack Fitzgerald, an attorney representing Yeh, said in a statement. Reuters. .

He also said that “Tesla should be held accountable for these intrusions and for misrepresenting its unfair privacy practices to him and other Tesla owners.”

Tesla did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

The complaint says Tesla’s behavior is “particularly egregious” and “highly offensive.”

Yeh filed the complaint “against Tesla on behalf of himself, a similarly situated class of members, and the general public.”

The complaint says the potential class would include people who have owned or leased a Tesla within the past four years.

Reuters wrote that some Tesla employees could see customers “doing laundry and very intimate things. We could see their children,” says a former employee.

“Indeed, parents’ interest in the privacy of their children is one of the most important liberty interests recognized by society,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit asks the court to “order Tesla to participate in its wrongful actions, including violations of the privacy of customers and others, and to pay actual and punitive damages.” (News.ro)