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.
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.
Same sort of thing coming to the US because of course.
I just bought an EV that was made before 2020. I’m going to learn all about rebuilding EV batteries.
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.
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!
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!
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.
Kind of a good idea if (and that’s a big fucking if) the videos just were properly protected. I mean how else could you prove cell phone use after a crash?
They don’t have the know-how and interest to protect the videos though so fuck this.
I always bought old used cars anyway.
And those cars age out. Eventually your old used cars have this.
The U.S. as well
Fuck this shit 100%
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?
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.
Glad my 2018 car only had 3G which I had removed at the dealership due to it causing battery drain so I’m good!
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
I want my next car to be an ev… but with manual window winders
Then Slate has an EV for you!
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.
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.
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.
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).
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some systems with stereoscopic cameras or Kinect-like laser grids
Soon enough, If you defeat or try to defeat the government surveillance system, it will probably be against the law
Clarkson was a step ahead of us this time.
At least tesls are easily fooled.
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%.
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.
Distracted Driver detection is already really common in cars sold these days, and it’s a good security feature.
If you’re not comfortable with it, you can always opt to not operate heavy machinery - there are other ways to get around.
Yeah we are not pro loose cannon we are pro privacy and if they cannot secure or explain the technology then fuck them all.
Can you put tape over the camera?
No! Sell your car! burn your house down! Drive a Model T and distill your own petroleum!
The logical assumption would be that such a system would need to detect a face for the car to start.
What if I’m ugly.
Or in clown costume.
Or going to a Kiss tribute concert
Etc.
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.
Alcohol detection interlocks in all cars would actually be useful. These cameras effectively do the same thing.
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.
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.
