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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[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That spot looks like it could use some decoration. Might I suggest a nice piece of thick black tape?

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[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Does your state have a lemon law? If you can, return the car as it's clearly defective.

[–] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

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).

[–] aikhae@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

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Another in the list of a "1001 Things To Do With Duct Tape."

[–] oyzmo@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

must be possible to disable the mobile chip? or at least wrap the antenna in some alufoil 😅

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