Since the filming in public laws in Switzerland are completely the opposite of those in the US I was wondering if anyone could help shine some light on the following topic.
In the US I owned a Tesla and when the vehicle was parked the cameras were filming the outside of the car in case someone attempted to damage it.
I’m contemplating on buying a Tesla in Switzerland and was wondering if the Teslas in Switzerland are also equipped with this feature.
Was just talking about this at the Kaffeeklatsch the other day... Bear in mind that this is a second hand story.
A friend's garage owner association is all in a kerfluffel due to this.
A Tesla owner's camera was (is?) recording and the other owners of the garage spaces are upset at being put under surveillance. Worse, the Tesla owner did not disclose that the car was recording.
Cue furious letters flying... Concerns were Swiss privacy laws and the fact that the data was being stored and sent to the US.
Apparently the owner claimed he could not turn off the camera, something about if he did so Tesla would no longer send software updates. (No idea if that is true, or not.)
At an owner's meeting the resulting vote was that the Tesla owner must turn off the camera 20meters before approaching the garage, and it must stay off while parked.
In the U.K. on the other hand, you can upload your cycle cam footage of car drivers driving dangerously to a Police server which can, and does result in prosecutions including heavy fines and points on the driver's licence.
Not sure why privacy laws trump road safety - especially if you haven't got anything to hide.
If the Swiss were so concerned about privacy, they wouldn't be such ardent curtain twitchers, would they?
I do t own a tesla, I wish I did, but I can say with a degree of certainty that tesla will know the answer to this question as Swiss data privacy is just about the first thing you think about when it comes to data storage in our outside Switzerland when you are building an IT related service here, which the cameras are. Call whatever is the Swiss tesla customer service line and they will know the answer to this question I am pretty sure.
No idea. As in my post, this is a second hand story. I know nothing about Teslas, so can't even begin to guess how these features work.
But somehow it must be 'knowable', as people who also parked in that garage figured it out, got upset over privacy issues, and whole thing blew up into quite the HOA bun fight.
So the moral of the story for the OP: If you park in anything other than a private single family garage, be aware of potential for conflict with your neighbors.
The article says that a parked Tesla’s eight exterior cameras record in ‘sentry mode’, that is, whenever anyone passes by the car, and it seems that the camera’s range goes beyond the Tesla owner’s parking spot.
That does seem problematic from a privacy standpoint.
Can any Tesla owners here comment?
Is an owner able to disable this sentry mode feature? Can the Tesla owner review the film himself, or is this something only Tesla can see? (Given that curtain twitching is a favorite pastime in my Quartier, the thought of one of my nosier neighbors continuously filming in the garage gives me the heebie-jeebies, to say the least.)
Those of you who park in communal garages - what are your garage association policies as to automatic filming, especially as to consent? I’d be interested in hearing how others have approached this.
You can switch it off (actually,you have to switch it on). I don't have it switched on at home. It's more something when you want to guard your car when parked in a questionable area.
Only the car owner can watch the videos. Tesla doesn't have access to it.
The US spec is the same as the European. If you need to turn it off because you were daft enough to tell anyone you recorded them - just pull out the USB stick.
(I have no idea why you would need to tell anyone your Tesla was recording - unless there was criminal acivity...)
I very rarely have sentry mode on in Switzerland, by default it’s off though there is still an alarm if anyone tries to break in. Here is a good explanation in English: https://www.hotcars.com/tesla-sentry…-need-to-know/
Because recording in public is only allowed if you inform people that they are recorded. And people have the right to reject your request. People know that Teslas sometimes film anyways… I know because my neighbours Tesla went bonkers at night once (they have some alarm system where they start to honk, play loud music, flash all lights and what not…) … I could not spot a person nearby so it probably was some cat or something triggering it. Some people who care about privacy dont like it. You get away with it if you park once along a street… but within a private car park is it something different. I have the right to not be recorded every time I arrive home or leave. Not because I am a criminal but because it is none of your business. “But I am not doing anything with these recordings”… That’s not how privacy laws work. Its a button in the menu and you can just switch it off… so do so and dont break the law. https://www.srf.ch/audio/ratgeber/da…chladen%20darf .
I don't own a Tesla but I have seen Teslas with "sentry mode" activated in car parks - when you approach them you'll see the monitor inside is on and with the text "sentry mode" on it, in a very large font, so it's rather clear what it does. I guess they've done it like this to act as a deterrent?
Rarely indeed because it's not needed. In the underground parking of the flat building, neighbors leave oldtimers unlocked. I leave my cabrio open if I'm driving away within a few hours. People leave bike racks, winter/summer tires, or child seats around. No one steals anything and that's the expectation.
Enter video recording of neighbors from parked car...it's an equivalent of walking around the town streets with a six shooter in a hip holster for "protection". It may be needed in other situation, but around here it's a very good example of culture shock.
The message on the screen can also be regarded as one of those anonymous passive-aggressive post-its from neighbors. Problem here is the car is not anonymous at all.
Put simply, Tesla's have a sentry mode. When active, this records activity around the car. You can define to exclude 'home' and / or favourite locations, so there is a measure of control.
When people come very close during sentry mode active, the interior screen lights up and tells whoever is watching in that they are being recorded. If someone gets very close to the car it might also flash the lights briefly. This is presumably how the other owners know that they are being recorded.
Thanks for that. So now I know that my neighbour is a bit of a dick not for using his cars surveillance but to let it "dance" in the middle of the night...
I was very thankful to have sentry mode a few months back. Some kids kept ringing my doorbell and running off. Day after day it happened. It's not a big deal for me, but it disturbs my dog no end.
So I was able to speak to the kid's parents about it the next day when they walked past. Hasn't happened since.
All Teslas offer Sentry Mode (which needs to be armed via the control panel or app). When activated by somebody approaching the car, the exterior cameras provide 360° coverage around the car, which is recorded. As mentioned, a very visible warning (in the same language as the car's operating language, so not very useful if you set your car to English but drive in Switzerland) is displayed on the main screen inside the car, and if people continue to hang around the car (or touch/rock it), eventually the alarm will be set off and rock music played at maximum volume—it's really very loud. (Note, this is not the "light show"—that's a separate feature designed to show off, not to deter or repel.)
Aside: I had the Basel police call me the other day because my car "alarm" (rock music) had been set off while the car was parked in the street! The situation was very promptly and very politely resolved by me returning to the car, 30 minutes after I parked it. So in less than half an hour, someone managed to trigger Sentry Mode and set off the alarm, someone else called the police to complain about the noise, the police arrived, they looked up the car registration database to find my name and number, they called me, and I returned to the car. Swiss efficiency.
Sentry Mode can be set to exclude the registered Home location, among others. I have excluded my home, work and holiday home locations as it's annoying to receive alerts on my phone every time one of my family members goes near the car in the drive or garage.
So in short, the Tesla owner in meloncollie's story can simply automatically deactivate Sentry Mode (and all recording) while parked at home—everybody should be happy. Note that pulling the USB stick out doesn't stop the car from recording in Sentry Mode, as software updates have now enabled recording of the first few minutes of Sentry Mode activity directly to the car's onboard computer.
The claim that the Tesla owner can't disable Sentry Mode because that would also disable software updates is nonsense. There's no correlation between Sentry Mode and software updates.