BERLIN (Reuters) – German authorities have serious indications of possible data protection violations by Tesla, Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Thursday, citing the data protection office in the state where the carmaker has its European gigafactory.
Handelsblatt’s report said the U.S. carmaker has failed to adequately protect data from customers, employees and business partners, citing 100 gigabytes of confidential data leaked to the newspaper by a whistleblower.
The breach would violate the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the newspaper added.
Handelsblatt quoted a lawyer for Tesla as saying that a “disgruntled former employee” had abused his access as a service technician to get information, adding that the company would take legal action against the suspected ex-employee.
The whistleblower notified the German authorities about the data protection breach in April, according to the newspaper.
The matter would become serious from a data protection point of view if the evidence becomes substantial, a spokesperson for Brandenburg data protection office was quoted as saying by Handelsblatt.
The Brandenburg data protection office was not immediately available for comment.
Tesla was not immediately available for comment on the report.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa in Berlin and Hyun Joo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Susan Fenton)
