Nvidia sued over ‘stolen’ data revealed in video conference screen-sharing mishap

Car tech company Valeo is accusing Nvidia of benefitting from stolen trade secrets

A new lawsuit filed against Nvidia alleged that a file accidentally left on display by one of its employees during a video conference contains data stolen from the car tech company Valeo.

The lawsuit alleged that employee Mohammad Moniruzzaman downloaded the “entirety of Valeo’s advanced parking and driving assistance systems source code” in early 2021 without authorization.

It says he also downloaded “scores of Valeo Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, and Excel spreadsheets explaining various aspects of the technology” before leaving to join Nvidia in August of that year.

Valeo is accusing Nvidia of having benefited from the stolen trade secrets.

“Mr Moniruzzaman ended his employment at Valeo and took the stolen source code and technical documentation with him to Nvidia, receiving a promotion to a senior position working on the software development for the very same project,” the lawsuit alleged.

The alleged data theft reportedly came to light the following year when staff from both Nvidia and Valeo were working over a Microsoft Teams video conference call on a joint parking assistance project.

Nvidia was developing the software, while Valeo was providing ultrasonic sensor hardware in the collaborative project for an unnamed automotive parts manufacturer.

“On March 8, 2022, one of these videoconference meetings was scheduled. Mr Moniruzzaman, now employed by Nvidia, attended the video conference call… and shared his computer screen during the call,” the lawsuit noted.

“When he minimized the PowerPoint presentation he had been sharing, however, he revealed one of Valeo’s verbatim source code files open on his computer,” it said.

Valeo participants on the conference call recognised the source code and took a screenshot of it, the company said.

“So brazen was Mr Moniruzzaman’s theft, the file path on his screen still read ‘ValeoDocs,’” the lawsuit noted.

Mr Moniruzzaman had admitted to stealing Valeo’s software and using it while employed at Nvidia when he was questioned by German police, according to Valeo’s lawsuit.

Nvidia has responded that it has no interest in using the stolen code, according to The Verge.

But Valeo alleged that its competitor has benefited from the data, which it says would save “millions of dollars in development costs”.

Citing these reasons, Valeo is seeking recovery of damages and an injunction to stop Nvidia and its staff from using its trade secrets.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Moniruzzaman through Nvidia for a comment.