this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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Privacy

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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.

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[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I mean I would like a dashcam that records front, my face and out the rear window. But it has to be under MY control.

I'd never buy a car with a camera I can't control. No doubt they'll soon turn it into some subscription shit or spy on you.

[–] Vinylraupe@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Ehm, what do you mean by soon?

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I do find this attitude interesting. You don't want yourself to be recorded, but you'll happily record random pedestrians without their knowledge or consent.

[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 minutes ago

So in my country it's pretty "limited" because of that. You're allowed to use a dash-cam as long as it doesn't permanently record. ONLY if there is a crash or a crime you may press the "record and keep the last X minutes" button. I mean that is how most dash-cams function anyway. And you can't publicly share it without consent of people you filmed or blur their faces and tags. So a legal framework already exists that protects citizens privacy while still allowing to collect video evidence.

Hmm... of course next step would need to be to have dashcams that have a sensors that encrypt and authenticate the video using a random key, to have a higher confidence that you haven't generated AI footage showing the other person at fault.