Privacy

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Driver facing camera in cars (lemmy.ml)

submitted 18 hours ago by aikhae@lemmy.ohaa.xyz to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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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.

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[–] toebert@piefed.social 30 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Summzashi@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] toebert@piefed.social 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] Summzashi@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] toebert@piefed.social 4 points 12 hours ago

Thank you, that's very useful to know.