Elon Musk pushed to use Tesla’s internal driver monitoring camera to record video of drivers’ behavior, primarily for Tesla to use this video as evidence to defend itself from investigations in the event of a crash, according to Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the Tesla CEO.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk is out, resulting in several revelations about Tesla’s past, present, and future. One of these revelations is a potential use for the Tesla internal driver monitoring camera that is included on current Teslas.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, this is going to be a issue for most if not all driver assisted cars I think. GM’s hand’s free system uses eye tracking cameras for their system and I have no doubt they’re probably also going to push for these kinds of reviews in their crashes too, all recalls and scandals considered.

    The laws need to catch up with the tech sooner rather than later here.

      • extant@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When you buy a car it’s spelled out in the privacy policy that they are absolutely collecting data and using it for X Y purpose and sharing it with their partners. Mozilla did an article on the policies and one of them even flat out said they are collecting data about having sex in the car. Edit: Sorry my point was going to be that when you purchase a car you are agreeing to this and if you disagree you don’t purchase it. So there is no protection because we’ve consented and personal data is too profitable wo American oligarchs won’t let those laws change.

    • what_is_a_name@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think that is why Ford’s Blue Cruise that uses IR sensors like iPhone’s Face ID You s the better way to go.

      But ultimately al L this tech can be misused. And will be misused.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      According to the article, they have since 2017 but they’ve been disabled/unused until 2021.

      Tesla used to rely entirely on a torque sensor in the steering wheel to determine if you’re still paying attention; now they use the camera to monitor you too.

      Supposedly this doesn’t leave the car unless you’ve opted in to allow it, but given the Customer footage lawsuit Tesla is currently dealing with, I wouldn’t trust that to be true.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I imagine there is a process to get hold of this footage from an individual vehicle following a crash? Especially when a lawsuit is confirmed.

    • Terevos@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      All advanced driving cars have them. I think it’s a legal requirement

    • Garbanzo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not if you want to keep using the self driving features you paid out the ass for

    • extant@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Months ago back on reddit in the justrolledintotheshop subreddit someone posted a picture where the owner of the car put tape over the internal camera of their vehicle which was not a Tesla but the car refused to start because it couldn’t see the driver.

  • money_loo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Good for him. People lie all the damn time, and all I want to know is who is actually at fault, the car or the idiot driver.

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yes because there is no possible way or incentive to abuse such a technology.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Aside from invasion of privacy, potential for blackmail, letting your car testify against you, fraudulent time stamps/metadata, modified video …… how about the simple case where proving you didn’t have hands on the wheel should not let the manufacturer off the hook of the car was faulty. Letting them spy on you just lets them shift the lawsuit from whether they’re at fault to whether you c plied with the fine print, from whether the car effed up, to arguing about your mannerisms

          • money_loo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Hyperbole.

            The spying thing would go nowhere fast and get them sued into oblivion.

            how about the simple case where proving you didn’t have hands on the wheel should not let the manufacturer off the hook of the car was faulty

            How would proving a person lied and the car was not at fault be letting the manufacturer off the hook? Are you seriously saying you’d rather all of the technology get stifled and stunted just because one person lied and created a media storm of bullshit?

            All of human progress on this would get shut down and sent back to the dark ages just because you didn’t want a company to reveal the truth.

            Yeah, no thanks. People can’t be trusted so I say this as a Tesla driver and technology lover, “spy” on us as much as you can to find the truth.

            *edit, I love how even after all the downvotes nobody could answer the simplest question of how proving someone lied would be letting the manufacturer off the hook. “Well ya see, money, you were able to garner the truth, and I took that personally because TeSLa should always be at fault…for rEaSOns”

            Please, try to be less transparent about where your emotional reactions are coming from. 🤣🤪

            • Maalus@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Lmao “tesla” and “human progress”.

              Yeah then go ahead and let the car spy on you. Let the country implement good citizen scores while we are at it.

              Privacy is a human right, and an internal camera is pointless to the “progress” you are talking about. It’s there to catch you out on a technicality to deny a settlement when the “self driving car” cripples you.

              • money_loo@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You are not entitled to privacy in public spaces while out and about though, and if you purchase a car with a camera in it then you’re explicitly allowing its usage on you while in said car.

                You guys are all, what, like 15 years old or something? Like, holy shit, forget the name of the company for a second and just think reasonably about how any of this stuff works.

                • Maalus@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Yup, I’ve thought long and hard how all of this works Works in a very simple way - company is installing cameras in cars to get rid of any semblence of privacy. Shills defend it as “technological progress”. People like me laugh at them and will never buy a car they shill for.

              • money_loo@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                But between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system

                Oh no!

                Anyways…

                • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  But between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras, according to interviews by Reuters with nine former employees.

                  Some of the recordings caught Tesla customers in embarrassing situations. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked.

                  Selectively edit out the parts that completely destroy your argument…stop insulting the community.

            • UlrikHD@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              You asked how it can be abused. This is one way it can be abused.

              If it’s computer, it can be hacked. Doesn’t have to be the car company itself that does the spying, though considering the track record of American companies, it wouldn’t surprise me. It could be you local police department, your distrustful partner, etc…

              • money_loo@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                “This is one way it can be abused”

                And what is this exactly? You never provided a valid example of anything…

                • UlrikHD@programming.dev
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                  1 year ago

                  Then I would suggest you to re-read the article and spend a minute to think about how that relates to how the technology can be abused. I’m not sure I can make it more obvious, and honestly if feels like you don’t understand it in bad faith.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You mean the same way Tesla autopilot would deactivate one second before a crash so they could argue in court that it wasn’t active and therefore not responsible. There was legislation proposed to stipulate that a self driving car was at least partially responsible if it was used up to 30 seconds prior to a crash to prevent this dickish behavior from Tesla.