Berlin, Dusseldorf, New York The IG Metall union has sharply criticized the management of the US automaker Tesla after the data leak. “We are calling on Tesla’s top management to immediately and comprehensively inform employees about any violations of their data protection rights,” Dirk Schulze from IG Metall Brandenburg told Handelsblatt. Apparently, employees’ most personal data would be open to every conceivable form of abuse.
The Handelsblatt has evaluated over 100 gigabytes of data that, according to informants, was accessible to many employees on the Tesla systems. These Tesla files contain 23,000 files, including Excel lists that apparently show the salaries and private addresses of more than 100,000 current and former employees. This also includes data from employees at the Grünheide plant in Brandenburg.
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Schulze described the revelations as “disturbing”. If management wants to prevent such incidents from happening again, it should promote a corporate culture in which employees can speak up about grievances openly without fear, Schulze said. The trade unionist campaigned for IG Metall, which had hardly been able to gain a foothold at Tesla: “As in all other companies, the same applies to Tesla: self-confident and unionized workforces are best able to ensure that their rights are protected.”
Upon request, Tesla had declined to comment on the data leak. The US company asks the Handelsblatt to send Tesla a copy of the data and then to delete all other copies immediately. Tesla suspects an employee of abusing his access as a service technician “to exfiltrate information”. The carmaker also said: “As you know, the use of illegally obtained data for media reporting is only permitted under exceptional circumstances.” The Handelsblatt considers these circumstances to be given.
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