Driver facing camera in cars
(midwest.social)
PrivacyHello 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.
I'd sell the car.
Yep, creepy, and point about the laptop camera is often invalid because depending on the model some laptops have a hardwired switch or cover for exactly this reason. Also usually have a light to tell you it's on, and aren't constantly in use.
And they don't pester you if you cover the camera either, and you have more control on whether they're online too.
Reminder that people with ADHD are regularly falsely flagged as not paying attention by eye tracking software. This camera shit is not only creepy and invasive. It likely doesn’t work well and has an ableist bias.
Wait really? My work truck uses Samsara, and it alerts me for not paying attention while I'm looking at the road at least once a week.
It's absolutely creepy.
I believe this is (or will soon be) a regulatory requirement in many countries, for self-driving features in modern cars.
For me I don't do long highway trips often enough to justify having it. I would rather not have inherently invasive blackbox tech as a tradeoff for a feature I will seldom (if ever) use.
I always bring up the magic of Scotch's Magic Tape.
This tape lets most of the light through (useful for dynamic light features) while blurring the image as if out of focus or behind frosted glass. It is also mostly discrete unlike opaque tapes.
The car potentially can refuse to run because can validate that the driver is not impaired to drive.
the locations of the cameras are no published and you're likely to miss at least one.
I'm guessing there's a microphone as well? Most cars have then now.
This is creepy as hell. I liked the Renault 5 - until now. Fuck this shit. I wont pay a small fortune, just to enslave myself to a 1984-style digital panopticon. I am getting angry just by reading your story. Corporate greed is once again crossing the line, slowly shifting the overtone window. Everyone who is not concerned about this, is simply ignorant and/or borderline stupid.
If it was my car, I'd probably cover it. And if it then starts beeping, I'd maybe even locate the speaker and deactivate that one, too.
I wonder if it is even legal to sell you something like this without informing you prior to your purchase.
Not sure if autocorrect or boneappletea but *Overton Window.
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.
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.
I just put electrical tape on the IR sensors. This reminds me of
This is one of those great ideas which can easily be implemented offline but they make it require phoning their data collection unit. Fuck everything about that. I would have stopped and said uhhh no. I want my money back.
does not matter if it can be online, because it is part of an opaque system where its not possible to verify they are telling the truth
You are not paranoid https://insideevs.com/news/661307/tesla-employees-shared-invasive-videos-customers-cars-report/
Cars collect data about you to sell them to insurance companies. There was a study by the mozilla foundation about this and they said that there is basicly no modern car that does not do that.
The only thing you can do to avoid them is buy an old car.
There was an article about removing the modem (or other essential piece of that data path) from a specific model of car (prius I think?), hoping to see more of those.
or use electrical tape on the cameras...
Additional data about your driving behavior is also collected, completely unrelated to cameras. In fact, this data is the majority.
and if they realise that and disable the car until you remove it?
🔥
I’d love to buy an electric car, but I want one with no electronics, if that makes sense. Electric power train, but no screens, “driver aids” or other nonsense
You want the Slate then
Would love it if they were making a sedan or a subcompact. Not everyone needs or wants a truck.
Already out of production, but the original fiat 500e is very much one of these barebones electric vehicles. I love mine
They are going to be required to have the spyware cameras in 2027 as well. It's federal law in the U.S. unfortunately. Hopefully there will be some published guides on tampering with and disabling them though.
The Bezos-mobile
Bezos has done a lot of horrible things, but making a $20k electric truck is not one of them.
I avoid shopping on Amazon unless absolutely necessary, maybe 2-3 times in the last ten years. I think his financial existence is an abomination. But if his truck company is the only manufacturer offering a $20k base vehicle then people have good reason to hand him money. Hopefully undercutting every other manufacturer by $10k+ will result in there being more cheap cars, and alternatives within that price range
Yes! I just heard of this recently. I hope it catches on.
I like the electronics, I just want anything that connects to the internet to be disabled. I'm close to needing to buy a new car, I plan on specifying at the dealership if they will stop me from disconnecting the GPS and other connections.
I have a 2023 chevy bolt and I just pulled the fuse for all that stuff. It doesn't really disable anything important. If you still want navigation or location-based charging, you can remove the onstar module behind the screen without issue, and the video tutorial made it look pretty damned easy to DIY. That disables all the spyware/internet stuff but leaves everything else working. I’ll probably do it eventually, for location-based charging and nothing else, but its very low priority at the moment, cuz I hardly ever go anywhere that can use the full level 1 12amp pull (my friends and family aren't confident their wiring can handle it, which is totally fair, I don't use 12amp at home for the same reason, and I'm getting a new outlet installed that will make it a level 2 charger anyway)
It also has physical buttons for all the important stuff. That and being able to disable the spyware were my two main criteria, with cargo space as a close third (used to have a civic coupe, loved the size, but useless for moving stuff)
Assuming you live in Europe, check out the citroen ec3. Base trim doesn't even have infotainment and is affordable as hell. Still a great car to drive and very practical.
No radio ability to connect to cell towers or WiFi would be nice. I think there's a brand doing this, but I forgot to read that article I saw about it just a day or two ago.
Edit: here it is: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/slate-says-its-electric-pickup-will-never-track-you/
buy an old car and convert it. It aint gonna be cheap but probably cheaper than a new EV.
Converting an ICE car to an electric is insanely expensive. Far more expensive than buying a new electric car, even without factoring in the cost of buying the old car
Renault has some models with almost no gimmicks, only a typical navigation system, for example the Kangoo at least our older model, no idea if that changed)
YES! If you don't need much range, maybe look the Renault Zoe from 2012. As its older it doesn't seem to have that much tech in it.
Be very much aware that these old Renault Zoe use chademo for fast charging, a connector that literally isn't used anywhere anymore so you're relegated to AC charging. Oh, and a funny little quirk with them; they cannot charge with less that 6KW AC because of how they use the motor inverter. sometimes with public AC chargers this is an issue due to load distribution between multiple chargers.
Oh, I just thought, that it just doesn't do "fast charging". Thank you for the heads-up!
This is being touted for safety reasons, yet there are still no guidelines and headlight brightness, headlight height, hood height of pickup trucks, etc. Regulate the vehicle exterior for actual and immediate safety benefits before trying to float this privacy infringing shit.
There are in Europe. Which is also where this car is from.
Car regulations are so much fun. Atere you crazy? Your car can't be that loud, there are several reasons for it, obviously. Oh wait, you mean a rich people car? Nevermind, those can be the loudest cars imaginable, because they need 900 hp
- Camera
- Internet connectivity
- Proprietary software
No device should have more than two of these things.
I don’t see why a vehicle needs to connect to the internet at all. Or have a screen whatsoever. I don’t understand why a car can’t just be a thing with a gear shift and a fucking steering wheel that drives from point A to point B
We're being sold this idea of a car being like, a mobile family home or comfort space away from home. But the thing is, cars before 2015-ish were actually kinda comfy. Now they look and feel like robots. Kinda sickening. They all look so fucking ugly too every car is the same ugly round van/SUV shape now.
wherever there's money to be made, capitalism will inevitably enshitify it and there's A LOT of money to be had by cars with cameras and sensors that record your habits to report them to insurance industry to charge the maximum possible fees and to the police to keep track of your whereabouts.
making cars comfy and convenient (as well has making it the only viable means for travel) is the way people get lured into this mobile panopticon by choice and they pay for the privilege to do so.
No device should have the third, ever.
Add a sticker with a face on it?
Moz's landing page about car privacy.
Depends on the car ofc, but the worst ones not only send video from inside the car to the company, they send data from outside the car! Like people walking around and stuff.
Some of the recordings caught Tesla customers, opens new tab in embarrassing situations. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked. Also shared: crashes and road-rage incidents. One crash video in 2021 showed a Tesla driving at high speed in a residential area hitting a child riding a bike, according to another ex-employee. The child flew in one direction, the bike in another. The video spread around a Tesla office in San Mateo, California, via private one-on-one chats, “like wildfire,” the ex-employee said.
Other images were more mundane, such as pictures of dogs and funny road signs that employees made into memes by embellishing them with amusing captions or commentary, before posting them in private group chats.
“We could see inside people's garages and their private properties,” said another former employee. “Let's say that a Tesla customer had something in their garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post those kinds of things.”
Lots more troubling shit at the link. Tesla's probably close tot he worst, but most modern cars are like all the privacy clusterfuck of phones... but worse.
You’re not being paranoid - that would be a hard “no” for me. I’d keep a clunker from the 70’s alive and drive that forever.
They will stop making parts... it is already happening. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
These will be required in all cars sold in the US as soon as next year and close to zero people are talking about.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you for the excellent response!
hell no
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.
Check the privacy laws in your country. If in Europe, you can have the services disconnected. Looks like a Renault so sometimes cars manufactured in the EU will come built in with the ability to turn off the feature.
Car data privacy is the worst there is today and will get much worse with timd. Mozilla foundation put out a report recently
https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/
Thank you, I'll look into that :)
It’s creepy even if it has a legitimate purpose. There’s a move to make this kind of tech mandatory in all cars, with the purported aim of stopping drunk driving. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/federal-surveillance-tech-becomes-mandatory-161321992.html
All this would be fine if, and only if you actually owned your car and all the data in it. If you could assume no cell phone somewhere hidden away in the computer. If the data was encrypted with a key you had, not the dealer, not the police, just you.
But we all know that isn't the case. You might have a title to your car, and own almost nothing inside it. Everything is connected these days, which means someone is looking at that data and seeing dollar signs.
Loyal Moses has a vid on these cameras re Ford patenting tech that won’t let you start the car if your mood is deemed incompatible with driving.
Whatever the case re drive ability, 100% your insurance company will have this data.
Does the car stop complaining if you cover it or is it a constant ear assault? Can you start the car if it’s covered? Is there a workaround to disable it?
ETA: what’s weird is that your parents aren’t aware that most people cover laptop cameras. I’m parent aged, and I do. Many laptops come equipped with a slider device to cover it.
Most people do not cover laptop cameras, but many do.
I only tried to cover it for a short time, as my parents are really opposed to the idea of covering it. Maybe I'll design and 3d print a removable cover. I think the laptop camera argument was a little short-sighted; I also pointed that out to them 😅
I fold paper over the front, or put electrical tape. don't need or want the thing.
Hell, that would motivate me to design a whole new plastic cover for the a pillar and remove the cameras entirely.
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.
Maybe you could rig up something to have a small picture of yourself a few inches away from it
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!
Haha, great idea
I will never buy a car made after 2018.
My 2019 Kia is pretty stripped from "smart" features 🤷♂️
Curious why that year? You have to go much older to predate any surveillance tech. Like some cars in the 90s had GPSs embedded, not sure when the ability to offload data arose but no later than 2007 in OnStar equiped vehicles.
That year and earlier had way less tracking and also have cars I actually want.
For example, my 2015 car has no connectivity because the cell modem is too old. And it’s a station wagon, which nobody makes anymore.
All if this is why my next car with be from the pre-computer era
I'm still driving a 2001. Lol.
My VW is a 2019.
To be fair though my next car was always going to be an air cooled Porsche, I've wanted one my whole life and I'm not getting any younger. Lately though I've been eyeing some cal look beetles on the various platforms so the mental math is happening
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.
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).
I wonder difficult it would be to design an image of an alert driver you could tape over, or suspend in front of this camera. I remember people I knew who had breathalyzer locks on their cars would get a sober person to blow in it for them. Mislead the spytech.
If you're in the EU these systems are mandatory which is also why the car complains when the cameras are covered.
Mind-boggling if true. There's no way I would own such a car.
I mean, there is a fairly good argument to be made for safety features that actually increase road safety. The tech and legislation requiring it is not bad, it's the unnecessary data-hoovering that can go on top of it that's bad. This is where we sort of rely on GDPR to provide at least some guard rails, although it isn't currently enough.
I'm sure it does save lives. That does not justify invading everyone's privacy with a video wiretap in every car. As you and another commenter pointed out, it would be fine if it was self contained and we could trust the car wasn't radioing to various corporations and governments. But we know for a fact that they are. As long as the car is able to transmit that data out of my control, I don't trust GDPR to protect me from being spied on with this camera.
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
Legislation can sometimes be a bit weird, so they might not actually be allowed to let you cover the camera despite allowing you to disable the system in settings. Most likely this system is restored to default enabled state every time the car "starts" because this is often a requirement for safety systems that can be disabled.
Wow. Your usage of commas is unique.
Whoops, german writing instincts strike again 🥸
