Driver facing camera in cars
14d 10h ago by lemmy.ohaa.xyz/u/aikhae in privacy@lemmy.ml from lemmy.ml
Hello people, my family recently bought a Renault 5 e-tech. The car itself is great, but there are some aspects that creep me out, especially the driver-facing camera. We didn't actually know that such a camera existed before we bought the car, it was only mentioned as the car was given to us.
The cameras official purpose is to see, if you are tired and paying attention to the road, by some "AI magic", I suppose. You can also let it scan your face, so that you automatically get logged into your profile.
I personally think, that that is kinda creepy, especially as there is no visual indication if the camera is currently recording and no official way to disable the camera hardware-wise. When it is being coverd, the car immediately complains about it.
When talking to friends or family about it, I got one of two reactions: equal concern, or "nice feature actually", "what about the camera on your laptop?", "you are way too paranoid", "I have noting to hide; it is only me driving being recorded".
I have also seen such cameras in other cars, BYD for example.
What do you think, is this creepy or am I too paranoid? Does anyone know where the actual data is processed, on device or on some cloud server? Do you have any experience with such cameras? I couldn't really find any information about it on the internet.
I’d love to buy an electric car, but I want one with no electronics, if that makes sense. Electric power train, but no screens, “driver aids” or other nonsense
You want the Slate then
The Bezos-mobile
Bezos has done a lot of horrible things, but making a $20k electric truck is not one of them.
I avoid shopping on Amazon unless absolutely necessary, maybe 2-3 times in the last ten years. I think his financial existence is an abomination. But if his truck company is the only manufacturer offering a $20k base vehicle then people have good reason to hand him money. Hopefully undercutting every other manufacturer by $10k+ will result in there being more cheap cars, and alternatives within that price range
I’ll believe it’s not $40k when they actually sell them.
It’s now “under $30k” since the tax break was nixed by Trump.
Maybe they'll be cheaper but a swarm of scalpers will pocket the difference 🫠 maybe they'll all get bought out as some sort of sacrificial lamb for AI to eat or something. Nothing good actually happens anymore, lol
Was it ever actually confirmed that Bezos was a prominent investor in that startup?
don't worry, this is "casting the net" stage. The enshitification comes later.
That and it used older, less safe battery tech.
Would love it if they were making a sedan or a subcompact. Not everyone needs or wants a truck.
Already out of production, but the original fiat 500e is very much one of these barebones electric vehicles. I love mine
They are going to be required to have the spyware cameras in 2027 as well. It's federal law in the U.S. unfortunately. Hopefully there will be some published guides on tampering with and disabling them though.
Icepick or, less permanently, spray paint I suppose
Are you saying to use those tools on the car or the people forcing these fascist laws? Either way I'm for it.
I actually want a 90s Civic hatchback with an EV swap
Yes! I just heard of this recently. I hope it catches on.
Not sure that it’ll be available this side of the Atlantic that soon, but it does seem pretty interesting
No radio ability to connect to cell towers or WiFi would be nice. I think there's a brand doing this, but I forgot to read that article I saw about it just a day or two ago.
Edit: here it is: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/slate-says-its-electric-pickup-will-never-track-you/
Only problem is it's owned by Bezos
'Cause of course it is. DAMMIT.
That's an Amazon owned company, their EVs won't track you because they are already getting that data from your phones.
Not my phone.
Yep, I'll never buy electric, becuase we aren't allowed to have an analog one.
ELECTRIC IS SO FUCKING SIMPLE. motor. Battery. Voltage regulator. Gearbox. Thats it. That is all it fucking needs. But we can't have that.
I think things need to start happening at dealerships. All those new cars just sitting outside unprotected. Hmm. Sure hope nothing happens to them. Do what it takes until we get what we want.
Thats it. That is all it fucking needs. But we can’t have that.
I share your pain.
I want an elec car. That is, if I could ahve one without spyware. Which I cannot, because enshittification.
Combustion cars are problematic in so many ways. But an older one is the only way I can avoid surveilance on wheels.
Think about what the mfg can glean from your car GPS! Or what they can infer and sell. You can figure some real intimate things about ppl that way. Give me your car GPS info. I will tell you where your kids go to school. I will tell you your economic class. Whether you just got cancer, b/c all the sudden your car is going to an oncologist office a lot. Whether you went to an abortion clinic last month. Whether you're having an affair with a co-worker. It's almost endless.
I've read claims that some car co's now make more money from your data than from selling you the entire ass car.
This should scare the shit out of everybody. But it does not seem to.
What is scary is how many lemmings don't realize all that data is tracked on your phones. So driving some 30 year old shit box doesn't prevent anything.
Yeah, and even more, all the data that's tracked by the car FROM your phone when you pair the phone and the car. Modern cars will scrape contacts, pictures, call logs, messages, locations, anything they can get off phones, and send it back to the car co as part of their profit-from-your-data ecosystem.
Why are people convinced this is just in EVs? All new vehicles will have this, even brodozers.
I know, and it sucks.
Its becuase the old evs that didnt have this have awful range and generally suck. New evs would be god, but all new cars have this shit so I will never buy one.
I like the electronics, I just want anything that connects to the internet to be disabled. I'm close to needing to buy a new car, I plan on specifying at the dealership if they will stop me from disconnecting the GPS and other connections.
I have a 2023 chevy bolt and I just pulled the fuse for all that stuff. It doesn't really disable anything important. If you still want navigation or location-based charging, you can remove the onstar module behind the screen without issue, and the video tutorial made it look pretty damned easy to DIY. That disables all the spyware/internet stuff but leaves everything else working. I’ll probably do it eventually, for location-based charging and nothing else, but its very low priority at the moment, cuz I hardly ever go anywhere that can use the full level 1 12amp pull (my friends and family aren't confident their wiring can handle it, which is totally fair, I don't use 12amp at home for the same reason, and I'm getting a new outlet installed that will make it a level 2 charger anyway)
It also has physical buttons for all the important stuff. That and being able to disable the spyware were my two main criteria, with cargo space as a close third (used to have a civic coupe, loved the size, but useless for moving stuff)
This will always be a game of cat and mouse, but I know that for example 3rd gen tacomas have a module that does all the talking (has the SIM card). You can pull a fuse and it kills it, but you lose your Bluetooth microphone also if you connect your phone and want to make calls - however it's just a power passthrough so it's really easy to splice a bypass cable that gives power back to the microphone in the cab.
There's other stuff you can do, like disconnecting the antennas but supposedly if there's a good enough cell signal the traces on the PCB will still transmit, I dunno.
Either way, there's ways to get around a lot of the invasive stuff in modern vehicles but it gets harder every year.
Assuming you live in Europe, check out the citroen ec3. Base trim doesn't even have infotainment and is affordable as hell. Still a great car to drive and very practical.
You can probably do an hybrid conversion of a popular ICE vehicle.
The newest kits replace the transmission and adds a battery in the trunk. The engine is then converted to run at a fixed RPM for max efficiency. You can also plug them in to charge at home and on short trips they never even start the engine.
Aside form the lost Trunk space, there are very few downsides.
There really should be more investment in this area so it becomes available dor mor cars.
Any examples of such kits or estimates of the cost?
5k to 8k depending on vehicle. Nothing mass manufactured yet. A lot of those products in the developing world. Lots of full electric conversion kits as well, but range is usually short to keep cost and size low.
Thanks!
That’s very much my thinking, the kits have come down in price a huge amount recently, so it’s almost achievable now
buy an old car and convert it. It aint gonna be cheap but probably cheaper than a new EV.
Converting an ICE car to an electric is insanely expensive. Far more expensive than buying a new electric car, even without factoring in the cost of buying the old car
where did you read that?
Look up the cost of conversion, then double that. It is very expensive to convert and then you get a car no one will touch for repairs. EV conversion companies are quite scammy.
Renault has some models with almost no gimmicks, only a typical navigation system, for example the Kangoo at least our older model, no idea if that changed)
YES! If you don't need much range, maybe look the Renault Zoe from 2012. As its older it doesn't seem to have that much tech in it.
Be very much aware that these old Renault Zoe use chademo for fast charging, a connector that literally isn't used anywhere anymore so you're relegated to AC charging. Oh, and a funny little quirk with them; they cannot charge with less that 6KW AC because of how they use the motor inverter. sometimes with public AC chargers this is an issue due to load distribution between multiple chargers.
Oh, I just thought, that it just doesn't do "fast charging". Thank you for the heads-up!
Backup cameras are mandatory for a long time.
little by little they encroach... I got a car with a back up camera but no cell connection
I’ve fitted one into my old pickup, but again not worth the amount of complication that they generally come with, eg a massive screen in the dash and the canbus nonsense to go with it. I’d rather not have the level of canbus integration of modern cars, where a locking module or whatever failing can stop the whole car working
- Camera
- Internet connectivity
- Proprietary software
No device should have more than two of these things.
No device should have the third, ever.
I have an offline dashcam and it's fine. It does everything I need it to, and does nothing I don't want it to. It can't connect to the internet so it can't spy on me if it wanted to.
Maybe there's room for compromise, but there is absolutely zero reason to concede such things in advance. The baseline expectation is that every device should be running Free Software and fully respect its owner's property rights, full stop.
If you instead approach the issue with the casual attitude that "oh, proprietary isn't so bad if it doesn't connect to the internet" the compromise after negotiations ends up favoring proprietary tyrants way more than you would've been okay with.
I don’t see why a vehicle needs to connect to the internet at all. Or have a screen whatsoever. I don’t understand why a car can’t just be a thing with a gear shift and a fucking steering wheel that drives from point A to point B
We're being sold this idea of a car being like, a mobile family home or comfort space away from home. But the thing is, cars before 2015-ish were actually kinda comfy. Now they look and feel like robots. Kinda sickening. They all look so fucking ugly too every car is the same ugly round van/SUV shape now.
wherever there's money to be made, capitalism will inevitably enshitify it and there's A LOT of money to be had by cars with cameras and sensors that record your habits to report them to insurance industry to charge the maximum possible fees and to the police to keep track of your whereabouts.
making cars comfy and convenient (as well has making it the only viable means for travel) is the way people get lured into this mobile panopticon by choice and they pay for the privilege to do so.
I don’t see why a vehicle needs to connect to the internet at all.
Remote start (ICE) or remote starting heater (EV, ICE with Webasto) is a nice feature. Ability to check the status of your doors (are they locked), windows (maybe you left them open because it was hot and then the rain sensor didn't close them), etc. All great features. Ability to track it is great if you have kids and let them drive, I guess - mine isn't that old yet.
It would be much nicer if you could route all of that to your HA server instead of the manufacturer's server though.
But the thing is, cars before 2015-ish were actually kinda comfy.
Is why I keep driving utterly depreciated formerly executive/luxury shitboxes! Okay, I had one 2019 Mercedes, best car I've ever owned, other than the privacy issues. But you can get 90% of the actual physical car features that car offered in a car manufactured before they started connecting 'em to the internet. Would only be missing the 9G-Tronic transmission and the super efficient engine that made it feel like I was driving for free.
Now my dream car is a 2010-2012 Range Rover (L322). First of the ones with the good 4.4 diesel engine and the extremely good ZF 8 speed transmission. Last of the ones with the sexy boxy body shape. Connectivity? GPS, radio, bluetooth (only for calls). No internet. Price? About 10-15k EUR for a decent one. Good luck finding a brand new car for less than 100k with the same comfort level and towing capacity. Maintenance costs? OK if you know how to wrench, literal bankruptcy material if you don't.
Remote start (ICE) or remote starting heater (EV, ICE with Webasto) is a nice feature. Ability to check the status of your doors (are they locked), windows (maybe you left them open because it was hot and then the rain sensor didn’t close them), etc.
I can do all of this myself with my eyes and my hands, I live in a place where I don’t lock my car really ever unless I go to the big cities. Like I detest the idea of having an app for my car to tell me the automatic window thing you’re talking about didn’t do it. I am perfectly capable of doing that myself with my own 2 hands, I’ve forgotten before in the rain and it hasn’t ever been so big of a deal that I’d opt for a feature to do that for me, it’s the definition of unnecessary. Remote start seems nice especially in the brutal winters but I’ve never had it before and I’ve never had any problems waking up before sunrise in below 0 weather to start my car other than battery issues. I also don’t see why remote start and heated seats would require internet or an app whatsoever.
It would be much nicer if you could route all of that to your HA server instead of the manufacturer’s server though.
I literally have no idea what this means and zero interest in learning anything more about software or hardware, I do admit that’s probably kindof ignorant of me but I also do not like “computer stuff” like that, I have an iPhone because I want it to 100% simple as possible like I’m a boomer.
I just want a god damn car I can start with my hands and drive where I need to go safely and efficiently. That’s it. I don’t understand why people enjoy having so many more unnecessary bells and whistles.
Good for you then. Where I live, it can be 35 degrees and sunshine and then suddenly torrential rain half an hour later. You'd want to be able to make sure the window is closed when it starts raining. How do you do that if you can't get to the car at the moment?
0 degree weather doesn't really warrant pre-heating your car either. Try running out the moment you wake up in nothing but a t-shirt and maybe pants when it's -30 or colder to get the car. Bonus points if you live on the 5th floor and have to run down, then up to go have breakfast and then back down. Then tell me you see no value in being able to do this remotely.
Though if you use an iPhone, I don't really see why you care about having a non-connected car anyway. Your phone already reports where you are at all times.
Try running out the moment you wake up in nothing but a t-shirt and maybe pants when it’s -30 or colder to get the car.
lol. I own winter coats for a reason… You throw that on instead of a t shirt in -30 mornings. We get those here too. Just going out in a t shirt is your own fault. I would also never work somewhere I couldn’t run outside quick to roll up my windows. I always work labor so I’ve never ever been told I’d have to just sit inside if I knew my car was being rained on. These problems aren’t real problems being solved they’re laziness. Telling me you don’t take the time to put a coat on in the winter is fucking insane no wonder you need your car to connect to WiFi and track you!
I don’t care about my phone tracking me tbh.
I care about it being easy and efficient to use, that’s my whole point about cars.
I'm not going to bother getting dressed just to go start the car lol. I own a winter coat too, I rarely use it because I don't need it when it's warmer than about -30. I go out in my shorts and t-shirt and then get dressed when it's actually time to leave.
Anyway, all of these things make using your car easier and more efficient. Not having to spend extra time doing things manually. But like I said, if you don't care about your phone tracking you, why give a shit about the car? It has far less data, it can't even access your bank accounts or email.
I bet you don't drive a car with manually adjustable valves either. Why? Are you lazy? Or is it that technology takes care of things you don't want to spend time doing? Matter of fact, why not walk or cycle to work? It's all laziness in the end.
There’s a certain level of laziness that I am willing to sacrifice for comfort/efficency, and then there’s the level of work that I enjoy putting in to my daily routine. Now I'm just worried for you as a fellow winter enjoyer… put on a coat and some gloves dude! You can get frostbite! It is 100% worth it, you already have to put on atleast underwear (you owe that to your neighbors if they can see you like mine could) and shoes! Please don’t tell me you skip putting on shoes too…
As far as the data thing goes I would be willfully ignorant if the cars actually reflected what I wanted to do with them, if that makes sense. I don’t need it to connect to an app on my phone because that personally annoys me, that’s kinda it. Same with driver facing cameras, fancy screens that are distracting, etc, it’s mostly that they personally annoy me and I don’t personally like the features and I wish there were options to have a simple car with a simple, physical interface.
The thing is, these are nearly always voluntary features. Just because you gain the ability to check lock status and lock the doors from your phone doesn't mean you lose the lock button on the fob. Teslas are just about the only exception there lol
As for the coat thing, I don't do it because I'm accustomed to it, I used to lie in snow piles in jeans and a t-shirt as a teen.
But the annoying part is having to run downstairs, put on shoes, etc. My car takes about half an hour of running the engine to get the ice off the windscreen and the cabin warm enough for my toddler (did you know that thick coats or onesies are bad for safety while driving? I did not, but my ex does and she's the kind of person to tell CPS I'm not keeping our child safe enough.) On an average winter morning that means I should be out of the door and starting the car the minute after I wake up. Kindergarten mornings are not fun in the winter. Difficult enough to wake up when it's pitch black outside.
But anyway, the reason I'm now looking at those old Range Rogers besides some of the comfiest seats in the world is that they have a preheater as standard equipment on diesels for those years so I can either program a schedule or use the remote if equipped, which works for me since I currently live in a detached home not the nth floor of a large commie block where signal might be an issue. I don't think my neighbours like me idling the car for half an hour on a cold morning either, the preheater is much quieter and uses less fuel so there's less exhaust gas too. Plus I get to start the engine when it's already warm, rather than worrying about whether my timing chain will make it through the winter.
Can't steal a Tesla. Once stolen, it cannot be used.
I mean, that’s great and all but I’ve never really had a problem with my cars being stolen more so with them becoming more expensive and less efficient not to mention ugly as sin, Tesla is a perfect example. Those cars look like corporate sanitation personified.
Love it, I'll be stealing this comment thanks.
"Your insurance claim is denied, our algorithm says it's 70% confident your eyes were dilated in a way consistent with taking alcohol. Also, here's your court hearing date"
I always bring up the magic of Scotch's Magic Tape.
This tape lets most of the light through (useful for dynamic light features) while blurring the image as if out of focus or behind frosted glass. It is also mostly discrete unlike opaque tapes.
The car potentially can refuse to run because can't validate that the driver is not impaired to drive.
That's not the car's responsibility
I think the US government thinks it is, IIRC there's an upcoming regulation in 2027 for that
The libertarians are finally starting to make sense.
Want the good bits of "libertarianism" with internal consistency and a liberatory framework? Have I got the ideology for you!
Anarchism might be a bit too extreme for my taste
Its not that extreme when you look into it, but I get it. Anarchism has a lot of negative connotations, but It's fundamentally an acknowledgement that hierarchy is the common thread that connects all oppressive structures (capitalism, racism, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, the state, etc). As such, if we want to be free from oppression we should be dismantling hierarchies by whatever means necessary, so long as those means are compatible with our ends. This could look like the anarchist of days past, sabotaging factories, killing union busters, and assassinating kings. But it also looks like starting community gardens, running food shares, setting up free stores, tool libraries, and time banks. There's a million ways to be an anarchist, and very few of them involve bombs
While I oppose all oppressive structures mentioned, how is hierarchy inherently oppressive?
Also, I definitely support serving the community through actions such as those you mentioned.
most hierarchies are not consensual.
Is it fair for me to expect companies or political parties to be non hierarchical?
I've been trying to think of a consensual hierarchy, and came up completely empty on that.
Libertarians would only care if the industry said they didn't want it. But manufacturers are all lock step in favor of these regulations.
Exactly. The big manufacturers love stuff like this. The more mandatory features, the harder it is for new car manufacturers to enter the market. Back in the day, guys like Ford started out by selling cars they built out of their garages. Ford was built by starting in a garage and plowing the profits back into the business over decades. But modern cars are just too complex to build that way.
You have no idea how the industry works. Everything like this is modular from suppliers and adding gadgets is trivial, which is why they all do it.
Yeah that's the problem, they make just enough sense that you can squint at it and think they're fine. I have a number of relatively intelligent acquaintances that are full on libertarian without having any idea it's a political pyramid scheme until you start having them dissect it and explain the parts on who gets to decide what gets pair for.
Drinking and driving is about freedom. My body, my choice, etc.
And we're back
I mean, cars aren’t sentient so, this should be a given since they can’t have responsibility assigned to them. But here we are.
I mean it is if the government wants it to be. Same as putting the breathalyzers in someone's car.
the locations of the cameras are no published and you're likely to miss at least one.
For that we still have the Internet. Better nerds than I will find out for each car model where each last camera is located
yes, thankfully; but only for now and even then, they permanently have the advantage in this cat-and-mouse game.
Yep, creepy, and point about the laptop camera is often invalid because depending on the model some laptops have a hardwired switch or cover for exactly this reason. Also usually have a light to tell you it's on, and aren't constantly in use.
And they don't pester you if you cover the camera either, and you have more control on whether they're online too.
CARINT is becoming a thing as well (car intelligence), next to the ore existing disciples if HUMINT, SIGINT etc.
And my own government is the least of my worries. Between CRINK, fallen allies, and megacorps.
anybody that doesn't think its an issue is an idiot
Cars collect data about you to sell them to insurance companies. There was a study by the mozilla foundation about this and they said that there is basicly no modern car that does not do that.
The only thing you can do to avoid them is buy an old car.
There was an article about removing the modem (or other essential piece of that data path) from a specific model of car (prius I think?), hoping to see more of those.
Yeah I want an entire ass web database with how to do that for every car. Spin up the hw hacker community on that shit.
I haven't found a centralized place for it though. Just some piecemeal info. Moz has a good centralized db for what info different cars collect. But nobody seem to have one for how to disable it, per make and model.
Find the antenna, wrap in foil. It's not rocket appliances, Ricky.
or use electrical tape on the cameras...
It's a lot more than just video. It's all your audio while you're in the car. Your driving habits, your location, your devices, who is in the car with you so on and so forth.
There's a ton of data that can be gathered and associated without having to have a camera.
If you ever talk in your car and it's a modern car. Congratulations! That's being recorded cataloged and sold off to the highest bidder.
I hope they like me talking to myself in funny voices and belting out songs at the top of my lungs, because that's all the audio they'll get out of me.
I read out my world domination manifesto when I go out for a loaf of bread. Because I know a group of people in a room in China know how important I am.
One doesn't have to be internationally important to not want their audio recorded in their own private space.
Oh yes, because you are so critical there are committees in China listening to your every conversation, or aliens, or those lizard democrats.
.... What?
Are you drinking your grandma's bath water again?
Additional data about your driving behavior is also collected, completely unrelated to cameras. In fact, this data is the majority.
Maybe people who drive like cunts endangering the public need to be watched.
I don't think invasive data collection via black boxes is the way to go. I'd say better driver education, speed traps, and better education for civil servants (such as traffic cops) might be a better solution.
and if they realise that and disable the car until you remove it?
🔥
Reread this post.
Many models can disable data sharing in options. Kia is one example.
Many models require the owner to fit a SIM card if they want OTA.
The amount of paranoid misinformation in this thread is annoying.
Y'all don't want a nanny state? Then stop driving drunk, stoned, texting or otherwise distracted and killing over 30,000 people a year like children. We need this shit because we give morons licences to drive, and we refuse to force telcos to disable data IO on phones while driving.
Wasn't there some news a while ago that talked about how bad car companies handle user data?
Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information
[...]Says Jen Caltrider, *PNI Program Director: “Many people think of their car as a private space — somewhere to call your doctor, have a personal conversation with your kid on the way to school, cry your eyes out over a break-up, or drive places you might not want the world to know about. But that perception no longer matches reality. All new cars today are privacy nightmares on wheels that collect huge amounts of personal information."[...] (source)
Not sure if this was the one I was thinking about. There was also this revelation made by the German CCC (Chaos computer club, pretty famous) about Volkswagen and some leaked GPS data. Here is an English article about it. (There is also the German CCC video, but the English doesn't sound very good. It includes an interesting part where they show examples of how bad this GPS leak actually is. E.g. finding the cars of catering companies for important people.)
Criminals or spies could potentially use such data to create a detailed movement profile of the car owners. For foreign intelligence agencies, for example, it may be of interest to see whose cars are parked daily between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. near buildings belonging to the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Or those which are driven regularly to the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein. The Cariad data provided such information.
Btw. Any person who in the year 2026 response to privacy concerns with "I have nothing to hide" is a certified moron and shouldn't be trusted with anything. They also have so little imagination that it should make everyone sad.
This car also comes with a ChatGPT based AI assistant which has a cursed Microsoft's Clippy vibe, so it watches, listens to everything. Why would anybody want that?
This feature is mandatory in all new cars sold in the European Union since 2024
I bought a new car from 2023, looks like I really dodged a bullet.
Its just insane how used we are now to being on camera everywhere. Even in our own cars???
Check for a cam anyway.
What's insane is how many libertarians drive drunk, texting, or stoned, putting a massive burden on insurance, healthcare, families, and >30,000 deaths a year.
So yeah, you might get recorded jerking off while driving.
There is no requirement to use it though. So blame the manufacturers if it's hard to disable it.
Honestly, if I were a young high school student looking for a career path today, and I was interested in automotive repair? I would seriously consider starting up a mechanic's shop specializing in ripping out all the spytech from personal automobiles.
is it hard to find tape?
No it isn't, just look up how to hook up a laptop to an EDR for your specific car.
All new 2027 cars in the US also
Hammer meet centre punch.
Also in the US from 2027 onward. It's in the 2021 infrastructure bill.
This is being touted for safety reasons, yet there are still no guidelines and headlight brightness, headlight height, hood height of pickup trucks, etc. Regulate the vehicle exterior for actual and immediate safety benefits before trying to float this privacy infringing shit.
There are in Europe. Which is also where this car is from.
Car regulations are so much fun. Atere you crazy? Your car can't be that loud, there are several reasons for it, obviously. Oh wait, you mean a rich people car? Nevermind, those can be the loudest cars imaginable, because they need 900 hp
"what about the camera on your laptop"
God I hate these people. That camera has been covered by duct tape for years for very good reasons. A lot of them actually apply to a driver-facing camera in my car, coincidentally.
Btw OP, I think Renault has a contract with Palantir
We got a modern BYD recently as a rental on a holiday that had this, it was really annoying. Anytime anything happened the car beeped, it was near constant different beeps - super distracting. Most of the things could be turned off, but had to be turned off each time the car was started, on a tablet buried in various menus.
The attention thing also wasn't working great with the driver wearing sunglasses, it'd randomly start complaining. It also complained when the driver would lean forward to get a better view around a corner or anything.
It was a very fancy car, but I'd definitely never choose a car with these features, even though some may probably be useful.
I'd also never trust one of these companies not to change the policy on what they can do with this camera in the future, at which point you'll have little to no choice about it. Or, to find out they messed up and now anyone can watch you in your car.
I'd go back to the dealership and complain, either ask for a refund or a way to be able to cover the camera, especially if they only disclosed it as you got the car.
One thing the Renault does great is the ability to turn all those systems off with a dedicated button to the left of the steering wheel.
Unfortunately all these systems are mandatory for car manufacturers these days. Renault handels it about as well as a car maker can to be honest.
That's interesting. OP implied they can't be disabled but now I see it was specifically hardware vise.
Does the car still complain if the camera is covered when these are disabled?
I was very interested in this car and tested it for about a week, the first thing I did was put a piece of black tape over the sensor. It does not complain, it doesn't notice.
If the systems are enabled, it warns you that it doesn't work, which is every time you start the car until you press the button.
I have no idea what kind of data this car gathers but out of all the cars I've shopped for lately this one was definitely the least intrusive of them all. The fact that this car in particular shows up here is kinda wild to me.
I didn't end up getting it because the trim levels are weird.
Thank you, that's very useful to know.
This is creepy as hell. I liked the Renault 5 - until now. Fuck this shit. I wont pay a small fortune, just to enslave myself to a 1984-style digital panopticon. I am getting angry just by reading your story. Corporate greed is once again crossing the line, slowly shifting the overtone window. Everyone who is not concerned about this, is simply ignorant and/or borderline stupid.
If it was my car, I'd probably cover it. And if it then starts beeping, I'd maybe even locate the speaker and deactivate that one, too.
I wonder if it is even legal to sell you something like this without informing you prior to your purchase.
To me your comment brings to mind the underlying problem, which is: your action won't matter because of the overwhelming behavior of the herd. The masses can't comprehend/don't care and profitability is absolutely not tied to consumer satisfaction anymore.
The only winning move is not to play. Buy older models before this idiocy started. My vehicle is 2011 my SO's is 2007.
This is all just to increase the profit margins for insurance.
I liked the Renault 5 - until now. Fuck this shit
Same.
I was so pumped when I first heard about this electric model, but now that's ruined.
What an amazing way to trash a decades long cult following.
Not sure if autocorrect or boneappletea but *Overton Window.
This is not as much of a problem as the android apps and the internet connectivity of everything.
Calm down. If you can afford a new car, you can afford a roll of electrical tape.
JFC lemmings love their drama. If only you showed this much passion at elections.
Check the privacy laws in your country. If in Europe, you can have the services disconnected. Looks like a Renault so sometimes cars manufactured in the EU will come built in with the ability to turn off the feature.
Car data privacy is the worst there is today and will get much worse with timd. Mozilla foundation put out a report recently
Thank you, I'll look into that :)
You’re not being paranoid - that would be a hard “no” for me. I’d keep a clunker from the 70’s alive and drive that forever.
It will be used against you at every opportunity.
It's an EU decision. It will be coming to many more cars as it will be mandatory from July 2026 for all newly registered vehicles. Renault 5 is simply one of the first new cars to feature it.
According to the same law, it is illegal to use the system in a way that can identify the person, it may not save biometrics, and it must function in closed loop without sharing the data. It's looking for things like head nodding or looking away from the road for more than 3.5 seconds while driving over 50 km/h. The camera is likely using infrared lighting as it should also work at night.
Anyway. According to the manual, it can be disabled by double tapping a button on the steering wheel or through the touch screen menus, though it will default to being enabled everytime you start the car as per the legal requirement.
If you cover it with tape, wear a mask or drive somebody else's car in which you don't have a profile saved, it will simply use the last previous profile and show an icon in the dashboard as a warning that the function isn't working.
You have to log your profile into your car?? Fuck everything about that!
My car has profiles for seat position, mirror position, radio settings etc but it's just Driver 1 and Driver 2 and you select with a button.
You don’t login, the car recognises you and adjusts settings such as the seat position to the way you like to have it without you having to do it manually, it’s a convenience thing.
I have a 2019 Edge that has preset seat settings. They're on buttons on the door where you can set your seat configuration up with the seat adjustments and such, hold down the button 1, 2, or 3 to save it, and when you turn the car off it shifts to default. So when you get into the car, push your number and it just adjusts everything for you.
It does not need to scan your face or identify you in any way. It's a button next to the door unlock.
Wait, "when you turn the car off it shifts to default," so the seat doesn't just stay where it is when you turn the car off?
Nope. It moves into a default position so it's easier to exit/enter. When I start it it'll automatically shift into the last preset used.
So if I start the car tomorrow, it'll shift into my setting. If my partner wants the car, they just have to push the 1 on the door and it'll shift into theirs.
Yeah, that’ would’ve been the way to do it before cameras were added.
It probably also does steering wheel height, aircon temp etc.
If the manufacturer is required by law to have a camera to monitor driver fatigue then they’ll make use it for other things like this.
Yeah, and for free, at the beginning. Then it'll become a subscription.
I'm the only one that drives my car. I don't need spyware to adjust the seat for me.
Is it conveniently connected to the internet and sending data about you to anywhere beyond your control?
Depends on the car. I think Tesla’s are always connected, but other brands you have to put a SIM card in so you have a choice.
I get the concern, I wouldn’t want to be monitored constantly by a 3rd party, but in this case I think it’s just for safety (monitoring driver fatigue) and convenience.
You give car manufacturers too much credit with this 'benefit of the doubt'.
That’d be getting covered immediately if it ended up in a car of mine
It's tied to your ignition system.
Well that’s dumb as fuck. Return it is!
Agreed but it's a common feature in a lot of cars and I'm assuming mandated in the state of California.
I don't think they sell Renaults in Cali
Correct, no French cars in the USA
"what about the camera on your laptop?"
My personal laptop does not have a camera, and my work laptop has a physical camera blocker.
I think it's unacceptable and indicative of this dangerous path we are headed down as whole. There's already been a few write ups on how cars are the most privacy disrespecting "devices" out there, which is wild considering we have smartphones.
With the driver facing camera we have no control over it also has complete access to our travel data, probably knows exactly who we are in the car with, records all our private conversations etc. etc.
It's so tiring to hear people defend this as if privacy is a thing of the past and anyone advocating it is being dramatic.
Wait till the 2027 gets the seat rectal probe to verify you by your large intestine. Also, they sell the data to health insurance providers.
"It" from South Park might as well be a reality.
Possibly NSFW
bwuahahaha possibly :)
Passenger airbag sensors already measure weight and send that data.
yeah the one in my car is wierd AF. I can set it off with a dozen sheets of paper, but not a backpack. A pizza, but not a grocery bag.
It's creepy. And it may make me an asshole to say, but I'd never want an interior camera in the event of an accident. It makes the following court case so much more gray, since you now introduce the opportunity to say "they were on the phone, talking, listening to music, whatever" and shift what should be a clear cut case into something more.
I have a BYD Han, and the camera has a sliding cover, which has never been opened. Its crazy that you can't cover it without the car complaining.
Log into your profile? On your car? Your car logs you in to a profile? What the fuck
Fatigue detection is a real thing that doesn't use the type of AI that people think of when they hear that word today most often. It's not language based but instead it's able to recognize faces and posture, tell where your attention is focused, and recognize signs of fatigue like head drop, eyes closing, and attention drifting from the road.
It, along with other attention based driver safety features, are real and effective and can be done on device with a computer with less power than a modern cellphone.
It is, however, at least a little creepy. It's made a lot more so by it not being disclosed upfront with disclosures and full user awareness. It should be explained by both the website, the car manual, the salesperson and the car itself exactly what it's doing and where any video data is being sent. It's probably processing the video locally and at most sending telemetry about which driver just sat down and such, but 1) you might not want that 2) unless they actually tell you that you don't know.
It's not paranoia to want an explanation and appropriate assurances, or for it to be in your control. You don't need to assume it's the worst case for that to be true. It's probably a real safety feature with a couple of quality of life features taped on so people can see it do something, since you don't really see a passive safety feature. But without actual communication you don't actually know that.
There are at least two cars owned by members of my family that I am aware of that have a fatigue detection, and neither of them use cameras. So I’m firmly in the creepy camp.
That's pretty fair. I know the cameras can be more effective, particularly in situations where the driver may be using lane centering or something, but I'm not sure I could be fully comfortable regardless.
don't need to assume it's the worst case
We are all assuming the worst case because it's most likely based on historical data. There is no way to justify this while ignoring other actual safety issues like headlights. Pretty sure not being blind while driving is an actual issue, but since it doesn't rape privacy and civil rights, they'll just ignore that.
You're literally quoting a part of a sentence to seemingly disagree with. Specifically a sentence that's saying that you don't need to believe it's nefarious for it to be reasonable to want privacy and assurances of privacy.
They seemed on the fence about if they were being paranoid or if they were justified in feeling concerned and it was as bad as it seemed.
I'm saying it doesn't matter what you believe their intentions are, it's not paranoid to have concerns about the camera in your face. You can short circuit questions about the technology or their reputation and go directly to resolving that discomfort however is most suitable to you.
I see the safety benefits of having this, and I would appreciate knowing that the car would blast a loud sound every time my eyes shut off from sleepiness so it will never happen, but this must be 100% open source no exceptions so it can be verified that it doesn't spy on you.
Yeah, I can see the safety benefits but I'm honestly not sure how I would feel about it. My current car has a variant but the camera is mounted on the outside, and it notices lane drift and changes in responsiveness to curves. It's basically an extension of the collision/lane centering/automatic windshield wiper (weirdly) systems.
I'm okay with that because it's not looking at me, but at the road, which I expect the car to do. Even if it was verified to not be sending anything anywhere I can honestly say I'm still very unsure about just being passively on camera like that.
Thank you for the excellent response!
It is very creepy. Especially if there is no official way to disable the camera, so that it does not complain about the camera being disabled.
It's to disempower you. All of this is to further disempower the masses.
Never mind the surveillance state run by fascists who want nothing more than a neutered population that lets them do what they want.
Or the fact that the world is building data centers on behalf of techbros that openly state that they want to control the entire population through limiting their access to information and rendering it a subscription
Or the manipulation of public opinion through 24h news cycles and infinite pundits online that pick and choose their words very carefully to make people believe what the news station owners want them to think (and I quote) "He's telling them what to think. That's our job."/"This is very dangerous to our democracy."
Or the petrochemical companies paying billions to super pacs and lobbying groups so that anti pollution laws don't get pushed and the media circus doesn't talk about how many spills there are, or why our air is becomic toxic, or why the things that climate scientists have been warning the world about are coming true one after another.
It's aaaaallll just a "conspiracy theory"
Nothing to see. In the words of an amazon manager standing over a dying colleague instead of calling an ambulance "Lets not look, Get back to work"
the surveillance state
The "surveillance state" that creates EU laws that required this camera?
You just put out a bunch of random, unconnected things so yeah, you're a dumbfuck conspiracy theorist and an embarrassment to logical thinking.
The laws that make it a requirement for cars to surveil their occupants at all times and analyse their face, what they're looking at, what they're doing at all times?
The laws that are created by the state to make surveillance mandatory. THAT surveillance state.
I brought up techbros building data centers because where do you think all the information from these cameras is being stored and analysed?
I brought up the mass media circus because that's what's used to force a pubpic opinion on topics such as this by obfuscating any potential negative opinions as 'whackjob conspiracy theories' or in the form of calling anyone with doubts on LLMs and ML algos being called intelligent 'the new luddites'
(Or worse yet, the americans deciding that any anti AI or anti datacenter language is on par with domestic terrorism)
Keep enjoying your yam. Don't mind the sound of the jackboots against your neigbours door, you have nothing to hide and thus of course, nothing to fear.
With reasoning like that, I guess nothing is ever a conspiracy to people like you.
History very clearly shows the myriad ways the powerful enact 'conspiracy theory' agendas, regularly. To not include these learnings in your worldview is folly. Epstein is a giant 'conspiracy theory' that's sitting out in the open. The inaction to do anything about it is another one.
We have the so-called "conspiracy theories" proven into actual conspiracies on a daily basis, so-yeah, the chances of those theories being factual is extremely high. Thus, everything is a conspiracy.
Prove this one then, right now.
Oh wait, you think proof of some other one is proof on ALL OF THEM? That's fucking embarrassing.
Wao 🤣
With reasoning like that, I guess nothing is ever a conspiracy to people like you.
It's MY reasoning that's suspect? I love how NOT instantly believing every ridiculous claim of conspiracy is somehow illogical.
I don't give a fuck if loosely defined "conspiracies" have existed, IT DOES NOT MEAN EVERY CONSPIRACY CLAIM IS AUTOMATICALLY RIGHT.
Yeah and the AI Power Grab mentioned by Bernie Sanders totally isn't happening right before our eyes.
Bernie has repeatedly embarrassed himself on that issue and has proven he is too old to understand such issues.
Moz's landing page about car privacy.
Depends on the car ofc, but the worst ones not only send video from inside the car to the company, they send data from outside the car! Like people walking around and stuff.
Some of the recordings caught Tesla customers, opens new tab in embarrassing situations. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked. Also shared: crashes and road-rage incidents. One crash video in 2021 showed a Tesla driving at high speed in a residential area hitting a child riding a bike, according to another ex-employee. The child flew in one direction, the bike in another. The video spread around a Tesla office in San Mateo, California, via private one-on-one chats, “like wildfire,” the ex-employee said.
Other images were more mundane, such as pictures of dogs and funny road signs that employees made into memes by embellishing them with amusing captions or commentary, before posting them in private group chats.
“We could see inside people's garages and their private properties,” said another former employee. “Let's say that a Tesla customer had something in their garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post those kinds of things.”
Lots more troubling shit at the link. Tesla's probably close tot he worst, but most modern cars are like all the privacy clusterfuck of phones... but worse.
It’s creepy even if it has a legitimate purpose. There’s a move to make this kind of tech mandatory in all cars, with the purported aim of stopping drunk driving. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/federal-surveillance-tech-becomes-mandatory-161321992.html
Surveillance is always under the guise of "protect the children" from the same government who rapes and kills children with 0 repercussions.
I don’t think you are paranoid. This technology is creepy as hell. Almost all cars are connected nowadays and send data back to the manufacturer’s server—visible or not. In the best case it’s just the service history, in the worst case live positions and more. Some cars stop working if the server is shut down *cough. Cameras equipped to unlock based on a face record biometric data. And honestly, would you trust your car manufacturer (!) to handle your biometric data?
This is completely fucked up. Watch someone dig up that Palantir pushed this legislation before they were a household name & recognized as the scum they are
All this would be fine if, and only if you actually owned your car and all the data in it. If you could assume no cell phone somewhere hidden away in the computer. If the data was encrypted with a key you had, not the dealer, not the police, just you.
But we all know that isn't the case. You might have a title to your car, and own almost nothing inside it. Everything is connected these days, which means someone is looking at that data and seeing dollar signs.
I'm cool with just not driving. Fuck you, car manufacturers. If I can't feasibly live a lifestyle on public transit I'll buy the oldest shittiest shitbox on Earth and drive it until it fucking explodes.
This is one of those great ideas which can easily be implemented offline but they make it require phoning their data collection unit. Fuck everything about that. I would have stopped and said uhhh no. I want my money back.
does not matter if it can be online, because it is part of an opaque system where its not possible to verify they are telling the truth
And this is why I have 2 cars from the 80's that I refuse to give up. They're nearly 100% mechanical, carburated and with almost no necessary fuzes to run the two.
I'd sell the car.
I don't know about the laws over there, but in the US you'd legally be able to return the car if this camera is a deal breaker and it was not disclosed before purchase.
It depends on the location and the dealership. I owned a Mustang GT for three days once. The dealership offered a 3 day return policy for any reason.
I thought they would put me through hell to return it but to their credit, they didn't.
Thank god for duct tape
I fckn hate these laws that force so much tech into new cars under the guise of safety. Not only is it a massive breach in privacy (I don't care if the car manufacturers claim they don't use this data for identification, I won't belive them), but it also makes small cars way more expensive, comparatively. Fck this sh*t, cars have been becoming obnoxiously expensive and forced BS tech like that just makes everything worse.
Your concern is definitely justified. This is creepy as hell.
I believe this is (or will soon be) a regulatory requirement in many countries, for self-driving features in modern cars.
For me I don't do long highway trips often enough to justify having it. I would rather not have inherently invasive blackbox tech as a tradeoff for a feature I will seldom (if ever) use.
These will be required in all cars sold in the US as soon as next year and close to zero people are talking about.
The bought and paid for media really have it under wraps.
Nothing we can do anyway. Except dont buy new cars. And those of us who care about this arent buying new cars. Rich folk will continue doing it. Businesses will have zero issue with it.
This will continue until old cars are illegal, and there will be an underground mafia of sorts to cull all of the spare parts suppliers so you will not be able to fix them. There will be a black market for car parts for those brave enough to dare drive a non spyware car. They will be jailed for it. Mark my words, this is their plan.
Loyal Moses has a vid on these cameras re Ford patenting tech that won’t let you start the car if your mood is deemed incompatible with driving.
Whatever the case re drive ability, 100% your insurance company will have this data.
Does the car stop complaining if you cover it or is it a constant ear assault? Can you start the car if it’s covered? Is there a workaround to disable it?
ETA: what’s weird is that your parents aren’t aware that most people cover laptop cameras. I’m parent aged, and I do. Many laptops come equipped with a slider device to cover it.
I only tried to cover it for a short time, as my parents are really opposed to the idea of covering it. Maybe I'll design and 3d print a removable cover. I think the laptop camera argument was a little short-sighted; I also pointed that out to them 😅
I fold paper over the front, or put electrical tape. don't need or want the thing.
Hell, that would motivate me to design a whole new plastic cover for the a pillar and remove the cameras entirely.
The laptop I have now has its own camera cover, but when I had a laptop that didn't have it, I was able to buy little slider stickers to put over it. I don't want to link any particular website, but if you look up "laptop camera slider sticker" you can easily find them.
Most people do not cover laptop cameras, but many do.
It was integrated into my last two cases. Maybe it’s a Lenovo thing.
System 76 came in a shitty, basic case. Feels almost fragile after Lenovo. And no slider. (I like the computer guts, but for that price the case shouldn’t feel like you could break something by simply lifting it while open.)
that was my experience w system76 as well; mac price tag w clevo build quality. only its support make it worthwhile.
For that price they can give it a durable case. It feels like driving around with car bumpers made of glass.
especially around the hinges
Destroy the camera bro
Black tape ought to solve it, if not a pair of wire cutters.
I will never buy a car made after 2018.
My 2019 Kia is pretty stripped from "smart" features 🤷♂️
Curious why that year? You have to go much older to predate any surveillance tech. Like some cars in the 90s had GPSs embedded, not sure when the ability to offload data arose but no later than 2007 in OnStar equiped vehicles.
That year and earlier had way less tracking and also have cars I actually want.
For example, my 2015 car has no connectivity because the cell modem is too old. And it’s a station wagon, which nobody makes anymore.
I got a 2020 mustang and it even more basic in terms of tech than my previous car, a 1999 bmw.
Damn, a 99 Mustang must be riveted together with tractor parts
Put a sticker over it
The car complains, when I do that. Maybe there is some way around that, but I haven't found one
Maybe you could rig up something to have a small picture of yourself a few inches away from it
Haha, great idea
It depends. IIRC some laptops that come with face unlock feature use dual IR cameras to confirm the face is not a flat picture with a bonus of being indifferent to darkness. They need a staring minifig!
Return the car. Complain to the dealership that the car complains when you cover the camera.
In my fantasy world, every single person who buys one does exactly that.
Then the car co either goes tits up, or it stops loading the vehicle full of spyware.
Same for smart TVs.
You might be able to remove the corresponding fuse
Some of these dorks out here would fr be supportive of a "smart" camera in their toilet looking straight at their hole/s. "I have nothing to hide, its just videos of me pooping"
Side question : is your car connected to the internet ?
It IS a cool feature but the privacy concerns kinda override any positivity I might have toward it. If it was completely offline with available source code, I'd be on board.
Nope. Take it right back.
Need to be smashing them. Call up the dealer and scream at them. Do not buy new cars.
Still can't believe we allowed this to happen. Well, I'll be repairing old cars till I die I guess.
Fucking hell.
I'll be sticking with 2015 and older for as long as I can.
Find and disable the antenna used by the cars electronics.
Destroy the ccd with a high powered laser pointer
I'm guessing there's a microphone as well? Most cars have then now.
Yes, the infotainment system even shows is as being constantly used, which I could disable by going through the android app list (infotainment is based on android) and disabling the built-in AI assistant
All if this is why my next car with be from the pre-computer era
Late 90s to early 2000s was peak car. All downhill after that. Like everything really.
I'm still driving a 2001. Lol.
My VW is a 2019.
To be fair though my next car was always going to be an air cooled Porsche, I've wanted one my whole life and I'm not getting any younger. Lately though I've been eyeing some cal look beetles on the various platforms so the mental math is happening
So your next car will be from 1940 or older?
Computers didn't make their way into cars until the late 70's, my next car will predate that.
Nothing a piece of tape won’t fix.
In many states any information not disclosed by the seller is grounds for you canceling the deal. But you would have to look that up for where you live. Or there's black tape, but then you're still paying for a camera you didn't want, aren't using, and weren't told about.
As an insider of the automotive industry I can say:
- these devices are added due to regulations
- Yes. It is creepy
- functionality is computed and performed onboard the car, it doesn't rely on any connection to the outside to function
- however, it could very well be sending data back to the mothership. They are legally obligated to get your explicit consent as per GDPR law
- the software is completely closed-source and there is no chance we get any information about it. It's all private intellectual property. Actually, the Car manufacturers (in this case Renault) almost always requires all suppliers of such equipment to ensure there is ZERO Open-source code in the delivered product. Suppliers are audited to prove they have not reused any Open-source code, piece of code or libraries.
I used to be on the engineering team that worked on the development of a similar camera. For what it's worth, at the time: there was no AI involved, we only used good old image processing algorithms. And the camera (all cameras, lidars, or radars on the car BTW) does not record anything. It treats images as they come. There's almost no storage space on the car for all the image data generated.
All this might have changed since then (especially the AI part) but I'm still relatively confident that car systems don't have the storage for all this data.
Additionally, since this is a European brand, I think it would be quite difficult to legally retain personal information like that. It was already difficult during the development phase.
I'm not saying they wouldn't be above ominous shenanigans, but it would be difficult.
I've taken apart the screen bezel on my laptop to disable the webcam before -then covid happened. Now, i just cover the camera with taped paper. -I will never have one of these cars but if i found myself in your situation i wouldn't be above using a hammer and screwdriver to remove the camera and dealing with the consequences after.
The only way I'd tolerate a camera in a vehicle with me would be if I was simply using it as a taxi, and it was driving itself and monitoring the inside.
Otherwise, nah. Any camera in a car I owned would be getting disabled and destroyed just for safe measure.
It's absolutely creepy.
Good to know, thanks!
It is actually creepy, privacy invading, and dangerous in some cases, I think about the guy who made a video working in the woods, simulating a chainsaw accident, and the car would not start because the driver is not 100% able due adrenaline rush visible on his face.
That said, it is a mandatory feature from EU made in 2019 for public safety, with an affiched goal to reduce road deaths. The datas would be anonymous, exploited for statistics and must respect UE rgpd. In theory!
In one hand I find dangerous to track and supervise a population, in the other hand I see way too much dangerous behaviors on the road, especially around pedestrians and bikers, and a system that would say to the driver "hey you fucked up here, don't do it again" would be nice.
Just an anecdote, an emergency brake system detected me walking and saved my life by breaking hard cause the driver was distracted (I was on a crosswalk), otherwise I would have been send to orbit.
Required in the EU and will be required in the US soon. BYD's big export market is Australia which doesn't require them yet but they're mandatory to get a good crash safety rating.
Renault and a lot of BYDs use Android as the software os, so probably it's Android doing the facial recognition (and also probably the attention eye tracking) and that's onboard.
Renault has a dashcam function that records from the built in cameras, but you have to plug in your own USB drive, so the upside of memory price-fixing is it's probably not worth it for Renault to spend $300 to store the data now.
Monthly subscription for safety features coming soon 🔜
I mean I would like a dashcam that records front, my face and out the rear window. But it has to be under MY control.
I'd never buy a car with a camera I can't control. No doubt they'll soon turn it into some subscription shit or spy on you.
Ehm, what do you mean by soon?
I do find this attitude interesting. You don't want yourself to be recorded, but you'll happily record random pedestrians without their knowledge or consent.
So in my country it's pretty "limited" because of that. You're allowed to use a dash-cam as long as it doesn't permanently record. ONLY if there is a crash or a crime you may press the "record and keep the last X minutes" button. I mean that is how most dash-cams function anyway. And you can't publicly share it without consent of people you filmed or blur their faces and tags. So a legal framework already exists that protects citizens privacy while still allowing to collect video evidence.
Hmm... of course next step would need to be to have dashcams that have a sensors that encrypt and authenticate the video using a random key, to have a higher confidence that you haven't generated AI footage showing the other person at fault.
Disassemble that fucking thing. Why do people tolerate this kind of shit?
hell no
I have the inner cam covered on my tesla, no probs so far (been like that for 4 years)
I'll just buy a second-hand 2011 Skoda Fabia. Compact car that just works and doesn't spy on you. Though I'd rather buy the LPG version of it because it costs 86 eurocents/liter here.
That spot looks like it could use some decoration. Might I suggest a nice piece of thick black tape?
Pull the telematics fuse, although I think they integrate it in so many things now it's rediculous.
Wdym the car complains about it?
Its there to check if your drunk and or drowsy. So it can not allow the car to turn on if blocked.
A car shouldn't be stopped by a camera
Does your state have a lemon law? If you can, return the car as it's clearly defective.
Add a sticker with a face on it?
break that shit with hammers
must be possible to disable the mobile chip? or at least wrap the antenna in some alufoil 😅
When you drive the car, play Rockwell, Somebody's Watching Me.
I'd just cover it or break it 🤷
Driver awareness systems A.K.A. driver-facing cameras have been a thing for quite some time now, and they do in fact serve a legitimate safety purpose which is detecting if you're falling a sleep or distracted from looking at the road. If you're in the EU these systems are mandatory which is also why the car complains when the cameras are covered.
Unfortunately these systems can also be exploited for nefarious tracking purposes without any real way to know for sure.
Edit: they don't use any "AI" for the detection AFAIK, just regular old ML (which may be labelled AI for marketing purposes though).
If you're in the EU these systems are mandatory which is also why the car complains when the cameras are covered.
Mind-boggling if true. There's no way I would own such a car.
I mean, there is a fairly good argument to be made for safety features that actually increase road safety. The tech and legislation requiring it is not bad, it's the unnecessary data-hoovering that can go on top of it that's bad. This is where we sort of rely on GDPR to provide at least some guard rails, although it isn't currently enough.
I'm sure it does save lives. That does not justify invading everyone's privacy with a video wiretap in every car. As you and another commenter pointed out, it would be fine if it was self contained and we could trust the car wasn't radioing to various corporations and governments. But we know for a fact that they are. As long as the car is able to transmit that data out of my control, I don't trust GDPR to protect me from being spied on with this camera.
Thank you for the context! Interestingly, I can disable the system in settings, so Renault should be able to let me cover it or provide a cover
Legislation can sometimes be a bit weird, so they might not actually be allowed to let you cover the camera despite allowing you to disable the system in settings. Most likely this system is restored to default enabled state every time the car "starts" because this is often a requirement for safety systems that can be disabled.
I wonder difficult it would be to design an image of an alert driver you could tape over, or suspend in front of this camera. I remember people I knew who had breathalyzer locks on their cars would get a sober person to blow in it for them. Mislead the spytech.
Opps I broke it....oh well.
Surveillance is good as long as we like the direction the machine is heading.
I don't know the purpose of this camera but sadly I have seen numerous driver battling against falling asleep, including on highways, so going faster than 100km/h on a 1ton machine.
You all might be excellent conscientious drivers who are horrified that the car might check on your ability to drive but I can tell you with 100% certainty that not all drivers, including otherwise very kind and caring people, are not always able to drive, yet still do so.
To be clear I am not advocating for any data to leave the car at any point. I'm only point that some usages of cameras pointing to the driver might be both beneficial to everybody and not be a privacy problem. How? Well detect the presence of eyes and if there is not, demand a conscious action (e.g. pressing a button) and if this does not work, increase stimulus, etc. This does NOT require any data from being sent to anybody.
Unrelated but I'm also for speed limiters for cars. I also do not think it's a privacy issue.
Still, to clarify, safety MUST be improved WITHOUT hindering on privacy of anybody involved.
Honestly I only think it's fair, to also have the driver be subject to surveillance, when they knowingly expose others to the car's exterior cameras.
Wow. Your usage of commas is unique.
Whoops, german writing instincts strike again 🥸
It's definitely creepy, but i can see someone who has gotten in trouble driving sleepy might want it?
yes, it's in my BYD, i like it. i have read of people complain that it beeps at them, the # of false positives is infintesimally small. Im more alarmed at being on the road with assholes who have taped over it because it keeps telling them. to pay attention.. wtg kind if shitty driver are they ?
As an Australian, I have zero issues with chinese cars spying on me, i assume they are, i refuse to buy a car from the five-eyes as it's my government spying on me that's the real concern. (no euro car, no american car etc)