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.


This is creepy as hell. I liked the Renault 5 - until now. Fuck this shit. I wont pay a small fortune, just to enslave myself to a 1984-style digital panopticon. I am getting angry just by reading your story. Corporate greed is once again crossing the line, slowly shifting the overtone window. Everyone who is not concerned about this, is simply ignorant and/or borderline stupid.
If it was my car, I’d probably cover it. And if it then starts beeping, I’d maybe even locate the speaker and deactivate that one, too.
I wonder if it is even legal to sell you something like this without informing you prior to your purchase.
Same.
I was so pumped when I first heard about this electric model, but now that’s ruined.
What an amazing way to trash a decades long cult following.
This is not as much of a problem as the android apps and the internet connectivity of everything.
To me your comment brings to mind the underlying problem, which is: your action won’t matter because of the overwhelming behavior of the herd. The masses can’t comprehend/don’t care and profitability is absolutely not tied to consumer satisfaction anymore.
The only winning move is not to play. Buy older models before this idiocy started. My vehicle is 2011 my SO’s is 2007.
This is all just to increase the profit margins for insurance.
Not sure if autocorrect or boneappletea but *Overton Window.