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Tesla factory in Grünheide, Brandenburg: "Particularly serious incident"
Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa
The American electric car manufacturer Tesla has come under scrutiny from German and Dutch data protection authorities. "The state commissioner has serious indications of possible data protection violations by the Tesla automotive group," confirmed a spokesman for the Brandenburg state data protection commissioner, Dagmar Hartge, according to a report in the "Handelsblatt". Tesla's German Giga factory is located in Brandenburg.
Should the information be substantiated, "the matter would be particularly serious from a data protection point of view, also because of the large number of people affected worldwide," the spokesman told the paper. Due to the "international dimension, the country representative has already informed the Dutch data protection supervisory authority about the case." Tesla's European headquarters are located in the Netherlands.
Musk's data also affected
According to the research, an informant had turned to the Brandenburg authorities in April. "I am worried because this data is also accessible in China or Russia," the informant wrote. The data that was allegedly not adequately protected at Tesla included confidential information about more than a hundred thousand employees, including home addresses and salaries.
Even the social security number of company boss Elon Musk was apparently available. Other data sets are said to concern bank details of customers as well as secret details from production and evidence of mass problems with Tesla's most important project, the self-driving car. The data in question had been in a data package that the "Handelsblatt" had been able to view.
Tesla said on request that the company suspected an ex-employee of having passed on data in violation of confidentiality obligations. It was a "disgruntled former employee". He had "abused his access as a service technician to exfiltrate information." Tesla wants to take legal action against the suspected ex-employee. The U.S. company had also asked the "Handelsblatt" to send the company a copy of these "Tesla files" and then "delete all other copies immediately".
The European General Data Protection Regulation provides for fines of up to four percent of a company's global annual turnover for data protection violations. For Tesla, that would be up to $2022.3 billion for 26.
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