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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Another in the list of a “1001 Things To Do With Duct Tape.”
Wdym the car complains about it?
Its there to check if your drunk and or drowsy. So it can not allow the car to turn on if blocked.
A car shouldn’t be stopped by a camera
Destroy the ccd with a high powered laser pointer
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.
Monthly subscription for safety features coming soon 🔜
Disassemble that fucking thing. Why do people tolerate this kind of shit?
I’m guessing there’s a microphone as well? Most cars have then now.
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
And this is why I have 2 cars from the 80’s that I refuse to give up. They’re nearly 100% mechanical, carburated and with almost no necessary fuzes to run the two.
Some of these dorks out here would fr be supportive of a “smart” camera in thdr toilet looking straight at their hole/s. “I have nothing to hide, its just videos of me pooping”
When the hole is opening an algorithm decides if its a fart/diarrhea/shit and adds the right amount of water to the bowl. Also the right amount of toilet paper rolls out.
When your session is over it ejects you from the toilet so we have maximum toiletefficiency.
People will call it toiletmaxxing.
I pictured it more like the system Rick had where it just analyzes his stool for abnormalities but that is way more accurate. And by the “correct” amount of tp, way too much, because its made by charmin
Put a sticker over it
The car complains, when I do that. Maybe there is some way around that, but I haven’t found one
Return the car. Complain to the dealership that the car complains when you cover the camera.
In my fantasy world, every single person who buys one does exactly that.
Then the car co either goes tits up, or it stops loading the vehicle full of spyware.
Same for smart TVs.
Maybe you could rig up something to have a small picture of yourself a few inches away from it
Haha, great idea
It depends. IIRC some laptops that come with face unlock feature use dual IR cameras to confirm the face is not a flat picture with a bonus of being indifferent to darkness. They need a staring minifig!
It is very creepy. Especially if there is no official way to disable the camera, so that it does not complain about the camera being disabled.
Fucking hell.
I’ll be sticking with 2015 and older for as long as I can.
Fatigue detection is a real thing that doesn’t use the type of AI that people think of when they hear that word today most often. It’s not language based but instead it’s able to recognize faces and posture, tell where your attention is focused, and recognize signs of fatigue like head drop, eyes closing, and attention drifting from the road.
It, along with other attention based driver safety features, are real and effective and can be done on device with a computer with less power than a modern cellphone.It is, however, at least a little creepy. It’s made a lot more so by it not being disclosed upfront with disclosures and full user awareness. It should be explained by both the website, the car manual, the salesperson and the car itself exactly what it’s doing and where any video data is being sent. It’s probably processing the video locally and at most sending telemetry about which driver just sat down and such, but 1) you might not want that 2) unless they actually tell you that you don’t know.
It’s not paranoia to want an explanation and appropriate assurances, or for it to be in your control. You don’t need to assume it’s the worst case for that to be true. It’s probably a real safety feature with a couple of quality of life features taped on so people can see it do something, since you don’t really see a passive safety feature. But without actual communication you don’t actually know that.
I see the safety benefits of having this, and I would appreciate knowing that the car would blast a loud sound every time my eyes shut off from sleepiness so it will never happen, but this must be 100% open source no exceptions so it can be verified that it doesn’t spy on you.
Yeah, I can see the safety benefits but I’m honestly not sure how I would feel about it. My current car has a variant but the camera is mounted on the outside, and it notices lane drift and changes in responsiveness to curves. It’s basically an extension of the collision/lane centering/automatic windshield wiper (weirdly) systems.
I’m okay with that because it’s not looking at me, but at the road, which I expect the car to do. Even if it was verified to not be sending anything anywhere I can honestly say I’m still very unsure about just being passively on camera like that.
don’t need to assume it’s the worst case
We are all assuming the worst case because it’s most likely based on historical data. There is no way to justify this while ignoring other actual safety issues like headlights. Pretty sure not being blind while driving is an actual issue, but since it doesn’t rape privacy and civil rights, they’ll just ignore that.
You’re literally quoting a part of a sentence to seemingly disagree with. Specifically a sentence that’s saying that you don’t need to believe it’s nefarious for it to be reasonable to want privacy and assurances of privacy.
They seemed on the fence about if they were being paranoid or if they were justified in feeling concerned and it was as bad as it seemed.
I’m saying it doesn’t matter what you believe their intentions are, it’s not paranoid to have concerns about the camera in your face. You can short circuit questions about the technology or their reputation and go directly to resolving that discomfort however is most suitable to you.
Thank you for the excellent response!
There are at least two cars owned by members of my family that I am aware of that have a fatigue detection, and neither of them use cameras. So I’m firmly in the creepy camp.
That’s pretty fair. I know the cameras can be more effective, particularly in situations where the driver may be using lane centering or something, but I’m not sure I could be fully comfortable regardless.
I mean I would like a dashcam that records front, my face and out the rear window. But it has to be under MY control.
I’d never buy a car with a camera I can’t control. No doubt they’ll soon turn it into some subscription shit or spy on you.
I do find this attitude interesting. You don’t want yourself to be recorded, but you’ll happily record random pedestrians without their knowledge or consent.
So in my country it’s pretty “limited” because of that. You’re allowed to use a dash-cam as long as it doesn’t permanently record. ONLY if there is a crash or a crime you may press the “record and keep the last X minutes” button. I mean that is how most dash-cams function anyway. And you can’t publicly share it without consent of people you filmed or blur their faces and tags. So a legal framework already exists that protects citizens privacy while still allowing to collect video evidence.
Hmm… of course next step would need to be to have dashcams that have a sensors that encrypt and authenticate the video using a random key, to have a higher confidence that you haven’t generated AI footage showing the other person at fault.
Ehm, what do you mean by soon?
All if this is why my next car with be from the pre-computer era
Late 90s to early 2000s was peak car. All downhill after that. Like everything really.
So your next car will be from 1940 or older?
Computers didn’t make their way into cars until the late 70’s, my next car will predate that.
I’m still driving a 2001. Lol.
