The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V., or vzbv) recently celebrated a victory against Tesla. On July 17, 2022, vzbv disclosed that it was suing the BEV maker for violating European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) with Sentry Mode. However, it also disputed the BEV maker's advertisement of CO2 savings. Although both discussions are interesting, it is the last one that is genuinely fascinating. We talked to vzbv about them.
The first one did not even have to see a court decision. Tesla just agreed to sign a cease-and-desist declaration in which it agreed to change the way it advertises how Sentry Mode works. According to vzbv, "Tesla did not inform the consumers on the necessity to comply with the GDPR and the risk of being fined by data protection authorities when using the Sentry Mode." The bad news is that this does not change much the situation of customers who want the feature to protect their cars, particularly in public spaces.
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