Hacker News Reader

Comment by Casteil | Hacker News Reader

>At Tesla we believe that security and privacy are core tenets of any modern technology.

Seeing this after the whistleblower/leak regarding Tesla employees having unfettered access to onboard camera footage (and that embarrassing/compromising footage of customers was actively shared internally) is... rich.

View on HN

That sounds like a subtle mischaracterization of the leak to me. The leak sounded more like, "the teams responsible for tagging data uploaded by Teslas had access to data uploaded by Teslas". The fact that they could share them amongst themselves is also not particularly surprising.

While I understand the alarm, it was also completely unsurprising even based purely on the company's public statements about how they use data from the cameras.

I think few who enabled Sentry Mode thought it was reasonably likely that Tesla employees would share titillating personal moments spotted by their cars for the luls.

Exactly. People shouldn't have to worry about their car being a serious privacy risk.

Video footage being shared with/accessible by Tesla should be strictly opt-in - especially for "sentry mode", which is the most likely to catch someone in their skivvies (or worse) in their garage.

I think few who read the comment he was replying to thought that we were discussing what people thought about Sentry Mode data labeling privacy issues and instead about "unfettered access to onboard camera footage".

I get your point there, but I bet not all of these were sentry. But even with sentry, there's some smarts to it about object detection. If you know how that works, you'd expect some human-in-the-loop labeling.

I'm not saying that it is right. There's a real lack of transparency here, especially considering how many people seem blissfully unaware.

You can also have to opt-in data/video collection manually when getting the car in the first place, at least here in Europe.

Yep, it's the same in the US

If an employee at a photo lab was keeping and sharing copies of compromising pictures there would be huge outrage and rightfully so. Just because they have to handle personal data doesn't mean it's acceptable to share and laugh with your colleagues; it should be handled with the utmost respect for your users' privacy.

I have bad news for you. This exact topic has been discussed on my local radio station (in a medium sized city) and loads of callers described working at a photo lab where there was a drawer full of copies of "noteworthy" photos.

I think it's apples and oranges though. With a photo lab the customer has deliberately handed over whatever images they want developed, whether the images are private or not. Tesla employees sharing images from cameras that some people may have plausibly not even known were there feels like much more of a violation.

If an employee at a hotel planted secret cameras and...

If an vacation rental landlord planted secret cameras and...

Bad news all around.

You can go to jail for having a surveillance system in your own home: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-doctor-guilty-of-making-se...

Hidden surveillance of the unsuspecting in restrooms, bathrooms, and bedrooms -anywhere where people can expect to have privacy- should of course be illegal. Nannycams in living rooms and other "public" rooms in private homes probably should be legal for obvious reasons.

"I have bad news for you."

Yes, secret cameras can get the host in trouble, but poke around at airbnb listings and you'll see cases where everyone reports highly visible internal cameras.

I'm not saying its good.

That's what I mean about a mischaracterization. There's no indication of long term retention, but rather of pointing and laughing.

Remember the olden days of photo labs at the mall that would run the pictures visibly in front of the window?

They don't do that any more, but the employees still point and laugh while they are in their possession. Right or wrong, it is human nature, when they all technically have access.

  The fact that they could share them amongst themselves is also not particularly surprising.

It's not that the could, it's that they did.

But of course they did. They are human, and baser instincts are hard to overcome. Especially in the age of share everything with everyone all the time. I would not be surprised to learn that the youngest generations have never been taught to not share everything if not quite the opposite.

That is also not surprising, if you have been around people for your whole life.

Anything that can be shared, will be shared.

- Murphy's Law of Sharing

Reply on news.ycombinator.com