A former employee is said to have published data from Tesla. It may also be about employee data. One reason why the data protection authority has become aware.
The Brandenburg state data protection officer Dagmar Hartge is investigating indications that the electric car manufacturer Tesla could not have adequately protected sensitive information. It is about the fact that employee data may have been widely accessible within the group, the authority said on request. “Should this prove to be correct, the matter would be particularly serious from a data protection point of view, also because of the large number of people affected worldwide,” emphasized a spokesman.
Tesla operates its only e-car plant in Europe to date in Grünheide near Berlin. The “Handelsblatt” received around 100 gigabytes of alleged Tesla data from informants, as the newspaper reported. It is information about customers, employees and business projects.
Tesla’s reaction
Tesla did not initially respond to a request for comment. The car manufacturer told the “Handelsblatt” that an ex-employee was suspected of having passed on data in violation of confidentiality obligations. He “abused his access as a service technician to exfiltrate information”. Tesla wants to take legal action against the suspected ex-employee.
The spokesman for the state data protection officer emphasized that the people concerned were not only employees at the Tesla plant in Grünheide, but also employees at other German and European locations. In view of this international dimension, the Dutch data protection supervisory authority was also informed.
Source: Stern
