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.
You have to log your profile into your car?? Fuck everything about that!
My car has profiles for seat position, mirror position, radio settings etc but it’s just Driver 1 and Driver 2 and you select with a button.
You’re basically trying to convince a medieval peasant that your so-called “antibiotic” potion can cure their disease but is definitely not witchcraft. Good luck wit dat!
You don’t login, the car recognises you and adjusts settings such as the seat position to the way you like to have it without you having to do it manually, it’s a convenience thing.
I’m the only one that drives my car. I don’t need spyware to adjust the seat for me.
My family only has one car. We don’t have pre-recorded seat settings, but it would be handy.
I have a 2019 Edge that has preset seat settings. They’re on buttons on the door where you can set your seat configuration up with the seat adjustments and such, hold down the button 1, 2, or 3 to save it, and when you turn the car off it shifts to default. So when you get into the car, push your number and it just adjusts everything for you.
It does not need to scan your face or identify you in any way. It’s a button next to the door unlock.
Yeah, that’ would’ve been the way to do it before cameras were added.
It probably also does steering wheel height, aircon temp etc.
If the manufacturer is required by law to have a camera to monitor driver fatigue then they’ll make use it for other things like this.
Is it conveniently connected to the internet and sending data about you to anywhere beyond your control?
Depends on the car. I think Tesla’s are always connected, but other brands you have to put a SIM card in so you have a choice.
I get the concern, I wouldn’t want to be monitored constantly by a 3rd party, but in this case I think it’s just for safety (monitoring driver fatigue) and convenience.