Tesla asks Full Self-Driving Beta drivers to accept being recorded in case of a crash or ‘safety risk’

Tesla is now asking owners getting into the Full Self-Driving Beta program to accept that Tesla can use footage from both inside and outside the car in case of a safety risk or accident.

It’s the first time that Tesla will attach footage to specific individuals.

For years now, Tesla has been using footage from the many cameras inside and outside its vehicles. But the automaker always made a point that the footage was anonymous and never associated with your vehicle.

The footage was only used to train its machine learning system and improve its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features. When it comes to the Full Self-Driving Beta, Tesla is now moving away from this strategy.

The automaker has updated the warning that comes with downloading a new version of the FSD Beta.

It includes all the much-needed warnings that were parts of previous releases, but Tesla added important new language:

“By enabling FSD Beta, I consent to Tesla’s collection of VIN-associated image data from the vehicle’s external cameras and Cabin Camera in the occurrence of a serious safety risk or a safety event like a collision.”

The important part is “VIN-associated,” which means that the footage collected will be associated with the owners’ vehicle.

The fact that Tesla added that language specifically related to safety risks and accidents would point toward the automaker looking to secure usable evidence in case of an accident where its Full Self-Driving system is blamed.

Before adding that mention, Tesla couldn’t link any footage to a specific vehicle without the driver’s permission, which it is now preemptively requiring. The update comes after what might have been the first reported accident related to Full Self-Driving Beta.

Earlier this month, we reported on an NHTSA report in which a Tesla owner claimed that the Full Self-Driving Beta caused a crash. The updated language also comes with Tesla’s latest FSD Beta update (10.5), which includes a bunch of new features, including the ability to test “emergency collision avoidance maneuver” in shadow mode.

Tesla is now pushing this update to its fleet of internal testers and owners who bought the Full Self-Driving package and scored 98 and up on the ‘Driver Safety Score’ system.

The automaker is slowly rolling out the beta to more owners who bought the package – years ago, in some cases – as Tesla is still behind its timelines for self-driving technology.

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