A woman recently took to social media after discovering that her Audi rental car’s dashboard contained a camera recording her every move. It also gave verbal reminders…
They’re naming the car manufacturer and the camera manufacturer and all its features but why did they not name the fucking car rental company??
I have a feeling this article is aimed at people looking for privacy invading cameras.
why did they not name the fucking car rental company?
Because it’s not a car rental company, it was a free loaner from a dealership / workshop. The article plays fast and loose with facts (like the hidden camera) when the thing is the size of your head and right where the rearview mirror is.
I doubt that’s the actual camera in question too. That’s likely just a stock photo.
When I posted about this same thing yesterday, it took a while to find a half decent article about it. DuckDuckGo seemed to bury them. IMO the Daily Dot did a much better job representing it in retrospect (and it’s a name I recognize at least) but the lion’s share of apparent journalism here seems to have been done by the anonymous Twitter account that compiled the clip and… Ugh… AI generated opinion about the camera. Some sources used the video with more skepticism than others.
I guess techspot is not one of them.
I also see a heck of a lot of Techspot articles posted here, a name I’ve never heard of anywhere else in the wild.
Im sure the rental agreement had a disclosure. So wasn’t hidden.
Just your bog standard ignorance and not reading what you’re agreeing too.
Last time I had to rent a car, it was a digital agreement that automatically scrolled to the bottom where I had to sign and the guy got very irritated when I scrolled back to the top to take a look at what I was signing. Now imagine you’ve got a kid or you’re late for work or whatever else is going on… These things are designed to take advantage of you.
‘Hidden clauses’ are a thing, and depending on your locale can be unenforceable if you weren’t made aware of it beforehand.
Hidden AI Camera
Does anyone see it??
The road? No. There’s this giant block covering the entire windshield.
Easy fix:
- Find its fuse
- Disconnect
Given it’s not her property, that sounds like a quick way to a lot of legal liability.
Pulling a fuse isn’t destroying
Covering a camera isn’t either
I will not let a company watch my every move, period
Legal liability can result from more than just destruction of property. It’s not her property, there’s likely limits on what she’s allowed to do with it, period.
I will not let a company watch my every move, period
Then don’t use somebody else’s car? There’s nothing in the law that says you can use another’s property however you like.
So pull the fuse, burn it out, re-insert it.
It’s interesting how many people here don’t seem to have any sort of reservation at all about damaging stuff that doesn’t belong to them. It’s a car that’s been loaned to you for free, that you’re using voluntarily. What exactly makes you feel you have the right to just abuse it?
Privacy invasion is invasion of human right. They violate my right so i violate their right. Eye for eye reasoning.
Or you could not borrow the car.
There is a significant difference between “property destruction” and “not abiding by the terms of the contract”. IMO this situation would fall under the latter, but watch the video in the linked article first to get the full context.
Facts based on the video:
- The vehicle in question was a loaner vehicle from an Audi dealership, so not a “true” rental in that sense.
- As with most loaner cars, these are offered as a convenience for the customer while their car is being serviced or repaired. In this case, her own car was in for a cooling system repair and had already been driving the loaner for a few days before noticing the camera.
- Not everyone immediately notices otherwise “obvious” things like this since, again, this was a loaner car that she was excited to experience. This is stated plainly in the video.
- There is an implication in the video that she was not informed about the camera. We don’t know if she signed any paperwork that stated as much, since that info isn’t given.
- She acknowledges on camera that, had she known about the camera, she would’ve happily paid $700 for a traditional rental.
There is some expectation of privacy when inside a vehicle, and that includes rental vehicles. Being recorded by a camera installed in a rental/loaner/whatever vehicle that is lent to you based on a contract, without being informed of said camera, is a massive invasion of privacy, no matter how you slice it.
Rentals aren’t free. Just figured that clarification needed to be made.
Yes, but this wasn’t a rental. It was a free loaner.
Acting as if the cost of the loaner isn’t baked into every service.
The car is equipped with a cameras so massive pointing directly at you, she’s calling it the “Eye of Sauron”
Wtf is the bullshit title? There’s nothing remotely hidden about it.
Would it work to put a bag over them?
“Unsafe driving detected. Please put down the beer and place both hands on the wheel.”
This is something that’s now legally required for new cars in the EU.
That should have been obvious and opt-in from day one.
I only have two questions. To get a loaner car she had to sign an agreement. Did she read before she signed? Was there a clause in the agreement about the cameras or about being filmed?
Probably buried in the 500 pages of indecipherable legalize written in all capital letters with no paragraph breaks.
Also maybe we shouldn’t be subject to the stuff at all no matter what the contract says? Maybe this shouldn’t be allowed
I’m conflicted about this. 1) it’s an invasion of privacy, but 2) drivers have gotten so awful and self absorbed that some of them need monitoring.
Calling it an Audi rental when it seems Audi was barely involved is a stretch.
Also, this may be a safe, secure, and appropriate use. Unless the footage is stored there (for a duration that is not short) there isn’t a big privacy issue as compared to the benefit in the health and safety and property of others.
there isn’t a big privacy issue as compared to the benefit in the health and safety and property of others.
So, now we’re measuring invasion of privacy based on “the health and safety and property of others”?
I strongly disagree with your assertion that “there isn’t a big privacy issue” here. From the top of my head:
- Did the rental company advise the customer before they got into the car?
- What other details were recorded?
- What is the process to erase the data?
- Who has access to it under which circumstances?
- How long is it retained?
The article does not provide that data, as far as I could tell at a scroll. They really tried to get up there in the word count so who knows.
Archiving and saving that data seems like a nightmare with little gain. I am going to save my rage for when it is warranted.
In the EU sold cars must have parts of this feature in order to be sold legally. This feels like ragebait.
Maybe all in all not a bad idea for audis and bmws. “Don’t forget to use your direction indicator” or “slower acceleration gets you to the next red light just as fast and consunes less fuel”. Might so a world of good for some brands
slower acceleration […] and consunes less fuel
I’m not advocating any specific behavior, but this generally is not true for combustion engines. Faster acceleration at lower revs (and then holding a steady speed for longer) is more fuel-efficient than a long, slow acceleration period. This is different for different vehicles, but it holds true as a rule of thumb.
AI is overkill though. Just remind them every 5 min
