News18 reports:
A customer has sent a takedown notice to Ola Electric for publishing the electric two-scooter’s telemetry data on social media, after the e-scooter met with an accident in Guwahati, injuring the rider.
Balwant Singh from Guwahati had tweeted on April 15 that his son had met with an accident “due to fault in regenerative braking where on a speed breaker, instead of slowing, the scooter accelerated, sending so much torque that he had an accident”.
The ride-hailing major said last week that its investigation showed the rider was overspeeding.
Read more at News18.
This is the type of situation we frequently encounter: someone posts something negative about a firm or entity on the internet, and the firm or entity responds to defend their reputation or product — by posting data or what they consider proof. But that disclosure links to an identifiable person and may violate privacy laws.
In this case, it is an electric 2-wheeler product, and one can say that Mr. Singh somewhat brought this on himself by publicly blaming the 2-wheeler for his son’s accident and injury. That is the kind of thing that could certainly scare other people off from using the firm’s product.
But how can the firm defend itself without violating Singh’s privacy?