Privacy@lemmy.mlbyaikhae@lemmy.ohaa.xyz
7 hours

Driver facing camera in cars

English
The dashboard of an renault 5 e-tech. The camera mentioned in the post is in the A-pillar.

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.

135
    • Rolder@reddthat.com
      24 minutes

      That’d be getting covered immediately if it ended up in a car of mine

    • Trilogy3452@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 hours

      “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”

    • quarkquasar@lemmy.world
      44 minutes

      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.

    • Shamot@jlai.lu
      2 hours

      This feature is mandatory in all new cars sold in the European Union since 2024

    • fira@lemmy.today
      2 hours

      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

      • xthexder@l.sw0.com
        1 hour

        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.

    • mctoasterson@reddthat.com
      2 hours

      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.

    • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
      3 hours

      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.

      • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
        3 hours

        And they don’t pester you if you cover the camera either, and you have more control on whether they’re online too.

    • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
      2 hours

      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.

    • MeetMeAtTheMovies [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4 hours

      Reminder that people with ADHD are regularly falsely flagged as not paying attention by eye tracking software. This camera shit is not only creepy and invasive. It likely doesn’t work well and has an ableist bias.

      • isame [he/him]@hexbear.net
        3 hours

        Wait really? My work truck uses Samsara, and it alerts me for not paying attention while I’m looking at the road at least once a week.

    • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
      5 hours

      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.

      • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
        48 minutes

        The car potentially can refuse to run because can’t validate that the driver is not impaired to drive.

      • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
        4 hours

        the locations of the cameras are no published and you’re likely to miss at least one.

        • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
          4 hours

          For that we still have the Internet. Better nerds than I will find out for each car model where each last camera is located

          • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
            2 hours

            yes, thankfully; but only for now and even then, they permanently have the advantage in this cat-and-mouse game.