this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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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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[–] fubbernuckin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

The car complains when the camera is covered. At a minimum that means making annoying sounds every time you drive anywhere, at worst the car doesn't let you drive. You can't just dismiss this, it's going to happen more and more, and they will be increasingly hostile to your workarounds.

[–] autonomous@lemmy.world 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

So disconnect the speaker and the noise should stop

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 40 minutes ago

On some vehicles that's the same speaker which makes the turn signal clicks and any kind of beeps or dings the car might make to alert that something's wrong. I had that speaker go out on my vehicle not too long ago and it was actually harder to drive without being able to hear the turn signals and not getting the alert if i forgot to disengage the parking break (it seems to electronically disengage when you put it in drive so there's no change in driving characteristics with this car when you drive with the parking break on)

[–] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Break the camera? Remove it? Scratch the lens?

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 13 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

In a few years, this might brick your car. Have fun paying to have it towed to the dealership. User-caused damage isn't covered under warranty by the way.

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Why does everything have to suck so much...

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 10 points 12 hours ago

Because the people making these laws aren't handled appropriately.