this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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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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[–] ChetManly@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Destroy the ccd with a high powered laser pointer

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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

Fucking hell.

I'll be sticking with 2015 and older for as long as I can.

[–] autonomous@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Find and disable the antenna used by the cars electronics.

[–] quarkquasar@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (5 children)

All if this is why my next car with be from the pre-computer era

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm guessing there's a microphone as well? Most cars have then now.

[–] aikhae@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 9 points 3 months ago

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

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

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.

[–] drolex@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Nothing a piece of tape won’t fix.

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[–] sicsadworld@hexbear.net 9 points 3 months ago

I just put electrical tape on the IR sensors. This reminds me of

altr

[–] synapse1278@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

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.
[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Add a sticker with a face on it?

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago

It's absolutely creepy.

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