Massive data breach at Tesla fuels doubts about Musk’s biggest promise

What are the Tesla files?

Several whistleblowers have leaked 100 gigabytes of presumably internal Tesla data to the German Handelsblatt. The documents supplied by insiders would come from the company’s IT system.

For six months, a team of 12 reviewed thousands of documents and customer complaints about problems with Tesla’s “Autopilot.” The Tesla files also contain confidential information about customers, employees and business partners.

The business newspaper also published the research online on Thursday evening in a series of articles (Paywall).

What’s in the Tesla files?

According to the “Handelsblatt”, the data “paints the picture of an electric car pioneer who appears to have much greater technological problems than previously known”. For example with its “autopilot”. According to this, the Tesla files contain “thousands of reports of complications with the driver assistance systems”. Complaints, for example, that the cars suddenly brake at full speed or accelerate on their own. In addition to many minor accidents, injuries and fatalities were reported.

In addition to information about technical problems and legal proceedings resulting from accidents, the leaked documents showed “salaries of 100,000 employees, customer bank details, secret production details, even Tesla boss Elon Musk’s alleged vehicle and social security number,” the report writes. newspaper.

The documents also revealed a company tailored to one person: Elon Musk. The boss seems to be “involved in the smallest things – be it the material of the battery anode or the door handles”.

How was the data evaluated?

More than a dozen editors in Germany, Japan and the US participated in the evaluation. Sebastian Matthes, editor-in-chief of “Handelsblatt”, writes: “For six months, a twelve-person Handelsblatt team evaluated files: 1388 PDF documents, 1015 Excel spreadsheets and 213 Powerpoint presentations – as well as countless images, videos, audio files and e-mails. ” The most recent files are from March 2022.

Is the data real?

According to the “Handelsblatt”, Tesla customers and employees from different countries were approached by the newspaper. All would have confirmed the information leaked about them.

In addition, forensic IT experts from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT) analyzed the data and found no evidence that “the dataset does not come from IT systems or from the Tesla environment.”

The newspaper also personally met the whistleblowers during the investigation. The journalists know the names, functions and places of residence of the sources.

How does Tesla respond?

Tesla does not want this reported. The car company’s lawyers asked Handelsblatt to send a copy of the data and delete all other copies. The journalists had previously asked Tesla 65 questions about the Tesla files, to which the company did not answer.

Tesla’s in-house attorney said it is believed a former employee misused his access and stole confidential information while working as a service technician. The company has announced that it will take legal action.

What is the purpose of the informants?

The whistleblowers say they want to draw attention to the lax data protection at Tesla. They claim “that they were able to retrieve and copy the data in the Tesla system, although that was outside their area of ​​responsibility,” the Handelsblatt writes. Many other employees also have access to sensitive customer data. That is why they had also warned German data protection officials. The Tesla car factory for Europe is located near Berlin.

The newspaper writes: “The Handelsblatt cannot definitively judge whether Tesla’s alleged dubious handling of data protection is the only motive of the whistleblowers. The only condition that the sources put to the editors was complete anonymity, for fear of reprisals from Tesla. There was no payment or other consideration.”

What are the consequences?

According to the “Handelsblatt”, at least one insider has alerted the newspaper and the data protection authorities. They now want to determine “exactly how Tesla handles data confidentiality”.

The German data protection authorities speak of “serious indications of possible data protection violations”. This concerns “sensitive employee data” that “could be very widely accessible within the group”. The case could be “particularly serious from a data protection point of view, also due to the large number of people affected worldwide,” the newspaper quoted authorities as saying.

The case has also been forwarded to the Dutch Data Protection Authority. Tesla has its European headquarters there.

How does the newspaper justify publishing the Tesla Files?

Tesla is committed to being extremely careful when it comes to data protection. For example, sensitive customer data may only have access to employees “who must have demonstrable knowledge of it”, the Handelsblatt quotes an internal company guideline. The data breach raises questions about this.

In addition, the information from the Tesla files indicates that the problems with the “autopilot” may be more common than previously thought. This is from the public, the newspaper writes. Especially since company boss Musk has been making ‘big promises’ about autonomous driving for years, which Tesla has not yet been able to fully fulfill. As early as 2016, he stated that autonomous driving was “essentially a solved problem”. The Tesla files showed a different picture.