Tesla is using its fleet of vehicles owned by its customers to collect data through its Autopilot sensors and build high-precision maps and other features to improve its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). With its latest OS update, version 8.0, the option to share the data with Tesla is automatically turned off for owners in Europe, presumably due to local privacy laws.

If European Tesla owners want to contribute in improving the Autopilot program, they need to turn the “DATA SHARING’ option on. It can be access through the center touchscreen in Controls > Settings > Safety & Security.”

When turning it on, Tesla prompts this quick description of the feature:

“One of the core reasons Tesla can provide advanced features such as Autopilot, Summon, and other active enhancements is that your car can learn from the experience of Tesla’s entire fleet and the billions of miles that Tesla customers have driven. That information enables us to improve Autopilot performance and introduce additional features. In order for these features to work, Tesla measures road segment data of all participating vehicles but in a way that does not identify you or your car, and may share that with partners that contribute similar data to help us provide the service. At no point is any personally identifiable information collected or shared during this process. You can enable or disable this feature and the collection and sharing of this data at any time via “DATA SHARING’ setting in Controls > Settings > Safety & Security.”

Tesla recently confirmed that owners drove over 222 million miles on Autopilot since the main Autopilot update in October 2015. Though the Autopilot doesn’t need to be activated for the vehicle to collect valuable road data to improve the system and future self-driving programs. Tesla’s fleet drove over 2 billion miles since the introduction of the Autopilot sensors in the Model S in 2014.

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