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 you think they are hiding an undetectable iPhone in your car for free?
The actual mobile broadband hardware for your phone is like the size of a dime. Also, if you have a little “Shark Fin” on the top of your car, you might consider looking in there…
and who is going to pay for petabytes of data storage very week?
Hiding? Modern vehicles straight up have cell modems and advertise it, look up Toyota Connected Services for example.
They aren’t giving you an eSim for free.
for the amount of money they would profit just from selling that data to insurance companies is enough to cover a fucking esim.
also, i forgot that cars are free these days and not thousands of dollars.
Are you saying they have a secret program where they illegally take your data and sell it to insurance companies?
i am suggesting that doing so would be profitable.
i don’t believe this would be illegal.
Selling tracking data from your customers without disclosing it would absolutely be illegal.
You’d go to jail if you did that in Europe, likely face a huge fine in certain US states too.
They do disclose it, it’s part of the paperwork when you purchase the vehicle.
https://support.toyota.com/s/article/Toyota-Insurance?language=en_US
Of course the dealers make it very easy to “opt-in” by accident.
The fact that it’s out in the open, literally on the car manufacturer sites, but people still deny this behavior, is a grim omen.
nice, doing the research i didn’t wanna do, thank you.
lol, you think the executives would go to jail? or the engineers?
guess what was illegal before the snowden leaks, guess what’s legal now.
i don’t want to suggest i know the specifics of the law, especially in countries i don’t even live in, but to think it’s an impossibility is pretty bewildering to me.
edit: also they disclose that shit, just in a very vague way to allow a wide interpretation of what was disclosed.
In EU this would be a massive GDPR breach and cost the company €20 million or 4% of the company’s total worldwide annual turnover**
In Germany you face Up to 3 years imprisonment or a fine for transferring data to a third party you weren’t authorized to share.
In France Collecting data by fraudulent, unfair, or unlawful means carries up to 5 years.
In California CCPA allows fines up to $7,500 per intentional violation (e.g per customer)
Firstly misleading disclosures are not valid under both GDPR & CCPA
GDPR - Consent must be “freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous”
CPRA definies “dark patterns” as a user interface designed to subvert or impair user autonomy, decision-making, or choice and states outright: agreement obtained through use of dark patterns does not constitute consent.
Secondly do you have any evidence of said disclosures?
it’s run by aliens and lizard people.
That’s why they’re taking the video.
So they are taking a video of you and in exchange giving you $10-50/month worth of data access?
Data doesn’t cost that much.