cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1247209/all-cars-sold-in-the-eu-now-require-a-camera-aimed-at-your-face-its-still-not-clear-wher
Starting July 7, 2026, every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera aimed at your face. Glance at your phone, your kids in the back seat, or the radio for too long, and the car will flash a warning light and sound an alert.
Automakers have known this was coming for years. What they, and EU regulators, have never spelled out is what happens to that footage after the alert goes off.
While the intention behind the new system is difficult to dispute, its implementation has raised several concerns. Early real-world testing suggests the distraction warnings can be overly sensitive and potentially distracting.
My 2021 car has this. it has no cellular data connection or significant internal storage and the camera just has what I assume is a very basic neural net that looks for signs of distraction. like the eye tracker modules some phones and laptops have. These are low-res greyscale IR cameras usually.
I’m OK with it, and it’s helped me out a few times, though I know some cars are more aggressive and beep at you just for looking at your own mirrors.
Some cars however have full time cabin recording that you dont have much control over, and some do have full time data connections that could theoretically send some kind of snapshots on events, but they arent going to do full time video streaming or uploading large video files.
I dont like being constantly monitored. I dont want to normalize the lack of privacy.
my phones are pin or pattern only
I do a pass code, but yeah, no finger prints or shudders facial scans
Iphone SE’s didnt have face unlock but still use the IR camera to scan your face every second.
Just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean it’s not being used on you (apologies for breaking it to you)
Apologies for not using Apple products
Oh nah no need to apologise, their products haven’t been good for decades. Merely making a point about how tech can be entirely hidden from the user
I just learned about internetless TVs that build mesh networks until one TV is found that can access the internet… that sounds like infiltrating a WiFi network and should be illegal.
Edit: it’s not true, I learned today after being downvoted into oblivion 😭
Wait until you hear about the facial recognition and expression reading cameras built into the fast food ‘order here’ screens
Another place where I never go. I’m starting to feel proud about my decision making about now…
If it really was a low res camera that didn’t phone home, save data, and was difficult to hack into, for me personally the benefits would outweigh the (limited) privacy malus.
Everyone thinks they’re a good driver, but collisions still happen, and no one deserves to be killed by someone in a car.
If it was a closed circuit that had no way of sending info to anyone anywhere that would be one thing, but data is the new gold and, I dont trust governments or private businesses enough to give them access to a camera on me whenever I am driving.
Me neither. It’s a big if.
Then stay off public roads. Traffic lights, stop signs are just THE MAN telling us what to do.
What a false equivalence…
Yeah they definitely aren’t going to record you and share with coworkers for their entertainment. https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/
yet another reason why I dont like Teslas, or honestly any vehicles with onboard video recording and cellular connections.
how has it helped you?
The only thing I can think of is that it detected you were sleepy when you knew that and had already chosen to continue driving
There are definitely times where ive thought I’m alert enough to drive, and then something happened where I realized that no, I was not.
Easy enough to switch drivers or pull over and nap.
What happens when you wear sunglasses?
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
a large metal blade unfolds from the headrest and severs your head is the safe assumption.
That you know of. Pretty easy to hide those things amongst all the rest of the electronics.
What’s the make and model of the car?
The same people who hate on this also like to drive drunk or while watching tiktok.
What? an actual fact?
Nononono…every driver will now be monitored by a committee in China.