Arizona Tesla drivers concerned following reports of inside the car footage being shared

PHOENIX - Photos and videos are captured inside Tesla cars via a small camera inside the cabin, but if you think those images are kept private, a new Reuters report says to think again.

The report says the footage is being shared in chat rooms. Tesla says the camera inside is there for safety.

This is coming as a shock to some Tesla owners – some didn't even know there was a camera in the car. Others weren't aware that their images and video were being shared.

For the past two years, Cameron Duty has been driving a Tesla. He wasn't pleased when he heard the news that Tesla employees were accused of sharing sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by the cars.

"It's a little bit concerning, especially in this whole age of data privacy. You would think that a company like Tesla would take better care of their customer's personal data," Duty said.

Other Tesla drivers had the same take.

"Because it could be very, very personal things. Whether or not it's identification, or my whereabouts, things like that of that nature," Shayla Woodland said.

Sanio Kurdesevic agrees.

"Knowing that somebody has access to my personal information or things that I would do in my car, not necessarily wanting to share it does kind of freak me out," Kurdesevic said.

Reuters interviewed over a dozen former Tesla employees who had worked at the company over the past 9 years. The images and videos were reportedly shared between 2019 and 2022.

Former employees say some of the videos were embarrassing, others were of crashes and road-rage incidents and some images were made into memes.

"That's huge of having a monitoring device constantly while in the vehicle 24/7 capturing every detail of somebody's life. I think that should definitely change, that should be taken seriously," Kurdesevic said.

A California Tesla owner on Friday filed a lawsuit against Tesla after hearing about the alleged shared images and videos.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk did not respond to Reuters.

FOX 10 also reached out to Tesla for a statement about this incident but have not heard back.