this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
380 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

48886 readers
958 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Summzashi@lemmy.world 8 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 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.

[โ€“] toebert@piefed.social 4 points 11 hours ago

Thank you, that's very useful to know.