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.
So, a couple of things…
For a real time warning system, there’s no need to actually record anything. Monitoring the video feed with no record capability should be fine.
Second, this sounds super easy to defeat with a printed photo card and a couple of Googley Eyes. 👀
“Super Easy to Defeat” is the now. They don’t care about that.
They just need you to accept it, and move along.
In a few years time, it will not be “super easy to defeat” but will be standard practice and accepted law.
By that stage it will likely be too late to do anything. They will have tied it in with chat control and all of our data.
Can you imagine the freedom that will be discovered 50 years from now in a trend, when people decide to ditch their personal devices and live like they used to 70, 80 years ago (maybe even 60).
Clarkson was a step ahead of us this time.
Soon enough, If you defeat or try to defeat the government surveillance system, it will probably be against the law
At least tesls are easily fooled.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some systems with stereoscopic cameras or Kinect-like laser grids
Second, this sounds super easy to defeat with a printed photo card and a couple of Googley Eyes. 👀
That’s fine, people are under the mistaken impression that there are bad drivers that would deliberately cheat this, and good drivers like them that pay 100% attention to the road, the reality is there is that 99% of drivers are good drivers ok of the time and distracted drivers some of the time, if the 1% genuinely terrible drivers actively bypass this, it’s still a major improvement for the those of us that share the road with the other 99%.
How many more years before me never owning a car and never driving is enough to put me on a list?
I won’t own anything made after 2015… That’s when LTE chips started becoming standard in cars…
I told my wife, my next car will have a carbuerator.
A carburetor is a step too far, you invite misery, do you hate yourself? Take care, lol.
But yep would love to see more folks keeping old cars running, I won’t be taking the plunge into “~mortgage and routinely operate my own bubble of dystopian hellscape”, think I’ma pretty much lifetime “pass” on that flavor of nastiness.
I want my next car to be an ev… but with manual window winders
Get an old car that doesn’t run and an EV conversion kit.
Spend $40,000 to end up with a $5000 car.
You drama queens need to learn about black electrical tape.
I want my next car to be an ev… but with manual window winders
Then Slate has an EV for you!
Eh better then throttle body fuel injection. I drive carb, direct injection and throttle body. Never had much issues with carbs other then my fucking rototiller.
Carbs waste 30% more fuel.
No they don’t. I get better fuel economy on some of my carbed vehicles, it’s just another aspect of fuel use not some sort of downgrade.
Some of the happiest moments of my childhood were getting a holly six-pack dialed in perfectly on my old Javelin… And balancing a six-pack is tricky as hell… ;-)
I’m a FIRM believer in fix-first… Too many people treat cars as disposable… and I maintain that keeping a 60 year old classic on the road is better for the environment than any new car… We (the world, not just the US) produce nothing but crap these days…cars have a life-expency of about 5 years, 10 at the outside (if you’re a non-BMW built Toyota that is)
My 2014 is 12 years old and still runs like it’s brand new… I’ll get another 15 years out of it easily… And when the engine dies, I’ll replace it.
The only thing that kills cars permanently is rust…rust is the only true killer.
Glad my 2018 car only had 3G which I had removed at the dealership due to it causing battery drain so I’m good!
Yeah… 2015 was about where cellular connected cars started being ubiquitous… And of course car manufactures were too cheap to put two computers in the car (one for infotainment, the other for engine management) so the modem has direct access to the ECU, which means throttle control, brakes, steering(?!), everything.
I’m 42, living in the united states, never had a drivers liscense.
If they tried this over here, people would die. Because they’d force me to be behind the wheel of an automobile.
And thus, people would die.
The US does have this law. It’s just not enacted yet because there’s so much they’re demanding in the law and automakers say it’s not possible. But it doesn’t force someone who doesn’t drive to drive.
Every new car. So congrats on further destroying the new car market, good job.
Time to stock up on old cars?
Sweet my problem has just become a massive opportunity!
No way in hell I’m buying a car with that BS. I’ll ride a bike first.
No way in hell I would buy a new car at all, lol!
No way in hell I could buy a new car. They cost more than my house.
My first used car was like $1000, lol!
Mine was $300 (a '76 Rabbit) and a couple of weeks later I got rear-ended and his insurance company totaled my car and gave me a $700 check. The car wasn’t any worse than before I got hit and I drove it another three years, so -$400 for three years of car.
Can you put tape over the camera?
Or disconnect it? What happens when it no longer functions? Will I need to fix this to get my car to run again?
I bet the system would sound an alarm if you did that.
I’m willing to bet there’s an ignition interlock that would keep the car from starting if the camera is disabled.
That would be possible but unlikely. If the system fails then the driver can’t use their car. What if they’re an emergency? That wouldn’t pass.
There’s already legislation in the US to implement such a kill switch based on if the camera says the driver is drowsy or drunk. Considering the uniformity with which totalitarianism seems to be spreading, I assume something similar isn’t out of the question.
Just wait until it gets integrated into that database ICE is using that can tell them who is a citizen and who isn’t, just by looking. Then it will shut the car off if the driver looks drowsy, drunk, or the wrong shade of brown.
Alcohol detection interlocks in all cars would actually be useful. These cameras effectively do the same thing.
Have you ever had to use one? I’ve had to do it (lot attendant) and not only is it unsanitary if someone else has to drive your car, but it’s fucking hard to get the breathalyzer to actually work properly to allow you to start the car and it will go off again while you’re driving requiring you to actually breath into it again. It’s not a passive thing, you have to have the lung capacity to do it. It can be set off by false positives too. This is the dumbest take.
Have you ever had to use one?
No. I don’t drink.
This is the dumbest take.
Sure, because 32 drunk driving deaths every day is apparently not a problem for Lemmy neckbeards.
The camera would accurately detect drunk driving patterns, as well as sleepy drivers, dementia drivers, texting drivers, stoned drivers, drivers eating cereal and hot soup, applying makeup, all the stupid shit North American drivers do. If any of that affects your insurance, just don’t fucking do that.
You don’t have to drink to have used one. I don’t drink. I have had to use one. This comment reads like “fuck any service worker who might have to drive your car.” Fuck mechanics. Fuck tow truck drivers. Fuck EMS.
Fuck people who have health problems and can’t actually use their lung capacity to blow into the breathalyzer to release the interlock. They’ll never have an emergency and maybe have to drive anywhere.
That’s why it’s a dumb take. This isn’t about drunk driving deaths. Your “assume guilt and fuck everyone else who’s not guilty but will be put in danger over it” take is exactly what I said it was.
The camera would accurately detect drunk driving patterns
The false positive rate on camera-based detection is insanely high.
Unplug the alarm speakers.
This is where I’m at with shit like this. I’m just gonna keep disconnecting everything that annoys me. Including my brakes.
There’s probably a fuse for the system. Unless it’s integrated in the whole media system.
It’s a safety system, so it’s unlikely to handled by the media unit, which honestly just makes it harder.
The logical assumption would be that such a system would need to detect a face for the car to start.
If it is enabled for theft protection. But, that would need to be disabled for fleet or rental cars.
This entire thread is assumption.
What if I’m ugly.
Or in clown costume.
Or going to a Kiss tribute concert
Etc.
No! Sell your car! burn your house down! Drive a Model T and distill your own petroleum!
Sounds like more ways for insurance companies to a) charge you more based on behaviors they arbitrarily determine are “bad”, and b) take your payments for years/decades then never pay out because they say something you did on video makes any accident your fault based on some term buried in the 500 page contract you obviously didn’t read all of.
They already do “a” by taking vehicle blackbox info uploaded by dealers or via telemetry and increasing your rate via their risk analysis. Note, your rates never go down for good driving. Only up.
I just want to rant about how dystopian car “insurance” is.
Set aside all the justifications / propaganda you’ve heard about car insurance, and think about how it actually works. You’re legally obligated to pay a corporation for the right to use your vehicle on public roads. What do you get out of it? For the vast majority of people nothing. Even if you get in an accident they’ll do their absolute damnedest not to pay you or to pay you a pittance that you could’ve covered with a fraction of the cumulative fee. That’s basically the text-book definition of a scam. Even if you do have “good” insurance (doubt) they’ll have higher prices due to all the scammy insurance companies. It’s a legally obligate scam – insurance has effectively turned every public road into a toll road.
Frankly, I feel this way about all forms of insurance, so I doubt anyone will take me seriously (It’s not hard to save and invest money, with that the entire notion of insurance kinda falls apart). Still legally obligatory insurance is a particularly disgusting form of oligarchical capture.
Should read up on the history of medical insurance, e.g. blue cross blue shield. The idea was that expensive payouts can happen early on during someone’s coverage, before they have a chance to build up savings. No one wants that to happen to them, so if everybody is in the pool of people who will pay for coverage, that risk is mitigated by being spread over a large group who only need to pay in a little at any time.
Rich people or institutions who can afford to self-insure don’t need insurance.
This original insurance was non-profit. The capitalist insurances are the ones realizing they can choose to only cover people who aren’t likely to need payouts, and profit off of the difference between pay ins and pay outs. I also agree this is a morally dubious system.
I used to think like you do. “How does this benefit me?”
But as a pedestrian who was hit by an uninsured driver, I can firmly tell you that you have no idea what you are talking about. Driving is not a constitutional right. It’s a privilege that the state gives to you. It’s extremely dangerous for those around you, so limiting the ability to drive very dangerous vehicles to people who are financially responsible isn’t the worst idea. You might even say, “but you can just sue the person who hit you if they don’t have insurance.” The response is to think about the kind of person who can’t afford $100/mo and how much you might be able to squeeze out of them in a lawsuit over $20,000 in repair bills.
It’s not a $20k repair bill I’m worried about, it’s the potential of $100k+ in medical liability that I’m really buying insurance for.
In my area there’s plenty of expensive cars driving around too, I somehow doubt the minimum $25k insurance would cover even half the cost of a totaled car + everything involved.
The primary purpose of AI systems is mass surveillance.
Yes.
Nope, fuck-no, not even close. Never going to fucking happen. I have dashcams inside (pointed out) but I keep the mic muted because I don’t need any of my ramblings recorded publicly… (I also have it set not to record speed… for obvious reasons)
So your dash can recording which is completely offline his us that public?
I can’t decipher this.
My bet is all these devices in new cars will be all from one company. It will be up to automakers to put the cameras in the dash but the guts will all be the exact same. They will plug in the computer and all other sensors available. If the car doesn’t have that sensor they can shut it off making these scalable to the “trim level” of the car.
The U.S. as well
Fuck this shit 100%
Score one more point for fucking bikes, Jesus…
Now about all those CCTVs
I get so tired of bikes being brought up every time a car is mentioned. They’re not at all an option for me or anyone who lives near me, and millions of others.
I’m sorry to hear that and I don’t mean to rub it in, but your local infrastructure isn’t my problem. I do hope it improves, though.
Just for balance there are plenty of things about my region I hate, like our shitty voting laws and piss poor democratic representation, but you wouldn’t catch me complaining to people who enjoy more direct democracy.
Are you also tired of being told that you are the one person responsible for choosing to live in a location that necessitates driving a car, or do you reckon it might be good to be told that a bit more, then?
I’m asking first, because I wouldn’t want to tire you any more, just because the world hastily on its way to hell in a hand basket, what with climate change, and all the disastrous knock-on effects that follow from it.
I hope you have a pleasant commute.
I’m not who you replied to, but this is a stupid take.
My area doesn’t have public transit to speak of, its semi-rural small town, and everything is in another town, so I’m forced to drive. Everywhere around here is like this. I explicitly do not have the option to move to a more urban area because I live in a very low cost of living area, which means very depressed wages, and I genuinely cant afford to move, much less live somewhere with walkable infrastructure or decent public transit, without better wages first. Because no, getting rid of everything and starting over isn’t an option, nor should it have to be.
And I didn’t choose to be here in the first place, either. When you are born into a very low cost of living area, you often get stuck there or can only move somewhere even further behind, because wages are so depressed you can’t save enough to get into a better area. The only way you get out is if you can land a good job before moving, which is insanely difficult, since remote work usually scales to the local wages, and who can afford to travel for in-person interviews?
Just move is easy to say when you can bring home more than you pay in bills, or have enough in savings to cover a few months until you find work or whatever, and its really easy to say when you already live in an expensive area. But its not actually a practical option for many of us.
So idk about that other person, but yes, I’m fucking tired of being told to just move if I don’t like how things are. Condescending out-of-touch bullshit, is what it is.
Lots of people arrive to the US with the clothes on their backs, not even speaking the language and manage to not only survive but thrive
If you want excuses you will always find them
I have had 2 uber drivers in the US who were recent immigrants… Less than 2 years… Had plans to stay 3 more and return back to their countries to open businesses…
You’re an ableist asshole.
My utv detects the seatbelt. If you don’t click in the seatbelt, it limits speed to like 10mph and limits the hp. Sometimes I’m tooling in the yard or getting it unstuck and I need full HP but also need to get in and out of the vehicle. Someone made a cute little bypass that took 5 minutes to install. Works like a charm. Now, when I’m driving on a road, I buckle up, but when I’m plowing the snowy driveway I don’t.
How do I learn to be a FOSS developer so I can start working on firmware/software replacements for vehicles?
Couldn’t you just sit on top of the buckled seat belt?
Shutup, nerd.
Edit: Truth is, I thought of that and tried it. I cant remember why, but for some reason it was uncomfortable. Or maybe I wanted the flexibility to buckle easily when I felt it was warranted. Something like that.
Jumping straight to vehicles might be much. But you can definitely start hacking away at small iot devices or routers. They usually have poor/no security and are a great way to get your feet wet.
There are whole youtube channels dedicated to reverse engineering small consumer devices.
Right on. Thanks. I never expected to jump straight to vehicles, nor do I think one man is out there making the FOSS operating systems, so I guess I’m just wondering where I should start to be able to contribute to the effort in the near future.
It’s not wether it’s easily fooled or not. The thing is, I am not sure most of us agree with this regulation. So is this democratic after all?
And if it is, then people are dumb, stupid.
Politicians are fine with this because the cameras will just point at their chauffeurs.
I’m in the US where this is coming soon enough. My car is a 2012 which seems like kind of a sweet spot, but it’s not going to last forever especially with our winters and road salt and pot holes.
I didn’t plan to buy a new car any time soon but have been thinking about my eventual next choice. All this BS has me wondering whether it’s better to get something soon without the next level of surveillance, or wait a few years and see how bad it is in practice and how it can be disabled.
That 2012 I mentioned is fun to drive, has low mileage for its age, and is fuel efficient, plus I have renewed my love of working on my own vehicles after not doing so for a decade or two. I’m currently doing work on the brakes. Maybe I’ll just have to try to make it live forever, and not give any more money to the whole damn industry as long as possible. That’s the most economically and environmentally friendly option, after all.
Just a heads up: I have a 2026 GM. The infotainment doesn’t work right and the key fob often isn’t detected. Their solution is to blame my phone (even though it works with every other car and every other Bluetooth device; and a factory reset of my Pixel 9 only solved some of the infotainment problems and shouldn’t have had to happen at all anyway). My father-in-law also has a 2026 Chevy and there are infotainment problems for him. Different models.
Tldr: avoid the 2026 GM vehicles.
Avoid all GM vehicles, they are directly responsible for the pathetic state of US public infrastructure and they have literally been caught valuing profits over their customers’ lives.
DONE, lol.
I kinda want to get something with a manual transmission again, so it will very likely be a japanese brand.
I have a car from 2023, and I think thats the last year before they started adding shit to the vara, like beeping when going over speed limit and filming the driver.
So if I were you, I would look at cars from that year now, and you hit the sweet spot of getting a 3 year old car for almost half the new price.
You won’t be able to disable stuff, it will get worse and worse every year as drivers gets used to it.
The mandate says nothing about cameras specifically.
I thought it did as well but it only specifies this :
Driver drowsiness and attention warning and advanced driver distraction warning systems shall be designed in such a way that those systems do not continuously record nor retain any data other than what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed within the closed-loop system. Furthermore, those data shall not be accessible or made available to third parties at any time and shall be immediately deleted after processing. Those systems shall also be designed to avoid overlap and shall not prompt the driver separately and concurrently or in a confusing manner where one action triggers both systems.
Don’t get me wrong, manufacturers are going to have a fucking field day with all of the shit they’ll try and get in under this banner of “safety” and they will almost certainly work their monetisation shenanigans in around this.
It might seem like that wording prohibits data collection, but it doesn’t cover all the bases a team of well paid lawyers would be able to come up with. Or they could just do what they normally do and just ignore the “no data collection” part and pay the
cost of doing business taxfine and rake in multiples of that fine in profits.My point is , it doesn’t specify cameras, so theoretically a company could come up with a non-face-scanning way of doing this and use that instead.
will they ?..fuck no…but they could if they wanted to.
Which is arguably worse.
edit : A note to say that I’m not arguing against the safety aspects of this , they might be fully valid, i’m arguing that it’ll be abused for profit in any way the companies think will give them a positive ROI.
