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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

It BS article, no cameras pointed at your face are required. They require "Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System", don't specify how it should be implemented.

Here's the text describing the system: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2023/2590/oj/eng

It specifically mentions that it is illegal to use the cameras from such system to identify the person. It is pretty much the opposite of what people think its going to do.

I am sorry you don't like that its not 1984 law but the discussion is bullshit, which means in that instead of 1984 dystopia we are getting the Brave new world dystopia where bullshit prevails in the brave new world.

I am sick and tired of BS rage bates of the endless entertainment; I would take 1984 dystopia anytime, at least we would know who the bad guys are.

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It's like we live in different worlds. The entire arc of technology over the past 30 years has been to centralize, collect, and then monetize. There are tons of systems that shouldn't be doing that, but they all evolve to end up doing that. We need a new version of Zawinski's Law: every company will attempt to monetize until they're selling user data.

That's literally why we have GDPR. This will be very illegal and the law itself specifically bans user identification with camera on top of the stuff protected by GDPR.

The enforcement of GDPR is more or less nonexistent for big companies. Even if they get fined, that is just cost of business for them.

In the text nothing prevents the manufacturer to stream the vide of your face to their servers all over the world and do the image processing there. It would even comply with GDPR if everybody pinky promised they not using that data for anything else.

I get the EU passed a law. A lot like Australia passed a law about banning under-16s from social media. Just like GDPR, enforcement is minimal. Passing laws divorced from reality does little.

In other words, you believe that because they mandate driver attention monitoring the manufacturers will install systems that are equipped wit storage and connectivity and they will process, transmit and sell this, no one will find out and even if they find out nothing will happen to them.

I disagree, that's a recipe for companies to spend more than they need at install time, then pay billions in fines and then pay again to re-call the vehicles to replace these systems.

GDPR is enforced, that's why US tech companies constantly complain about EU regulations.

No, I think the car companies will have telemetry from the sensor aggregated and sent back to them. The number of times it alerts, where the driver was, the nature of the alert, the speed of the vehicle at the time of the alert. There is a huge market from insurance companies to buy data like this so they can adjust premiums accordingly. I've worked at companies that wrote apps that had code in phones that would use the phone's accelerometer to assess driver ability and update risk models accordingly. I worked for a car company at one point, the the amount of financial pressure they were under (unit economics) was enormous, to the point where they were reevaluating the stitching in their seats to see if they could save money. They have access to the data, they need money, and there is a market to sell that data. When incentives line up that way, laws like the GDPR don't carry much weight.

You're aware of Consumer Reports recent investigation, right? https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/personal-informa...

Relevant section:

> 2.3. Privacy and data protection

> 2.3.1. The ADDW system shall function without relying on biometric personal data of any vehicle occupants. In this context, the biometric personal data is resulting from specific technical processing relating to the physical, physiological or behavioural characteristics of a natural person, which allow or confirm the unique identification of that natural person, such as facial images or dactyloscopic data. This requirement does not forbid the ADDW system to use data from the camera(s) equipped in the vehicle, it forbids the identification of the person by the ADDW system.

> 2.3.2. The ADDW system shall be designed in such a way that it shall only continuously record and retain data necessary for the system to function and operate within a closed-loop system.

> 2.3.3. Any processing of personal data shall be carried out in accordance with Union data protection law.

This doesn't appear to ban identification of the user by, say, the Advanced Driver Distraction Reporting System, which is triggered by and utilizes the same data streams as the Advanced Driver Distraction Warning System.

The text you linked mandates, as the first technical requirement, "An ADDW system shall determine when the driver’s visual attention is not directed towards the driving tasks and alert the driver through the vehicle human–machine interface."

Can you describe how you believe the driver's visual attention can be tracked by anything other than a camera pointed at the driver's face?

If no such other system exists, how is this doing anything other than mandating cameras pointed at the driver?

Is it BS if this is the only way to implement such a system? Then it is practically required. Legal or not these cameras will be used to identify you, car companies do all kinds of shady stuff with the data they collect with all their fancy new sensors. Besides, cars have famously lagged in security standards, so this data will be exfiltrated. By comparison, your comment is more hysterical sounding than the article. It is very reasonable to not want even more invasive systems installed in cars, especially when this may bleed into US models and then used against us here where the company can absolutely legally sell your data.

If you want to believe that when light shines on a CCD chip the only option is to record the data and transmit it to the corporations and the governments then keep believing it. Everything needs to be extreme after all, right?

It's not 'extreme' its just extrapolation and common sense. Profit motives dictate this as the only outcome. In what world are you living in where any system exists that collects data and doesn't transmit it to corporations and governments? Yes there are arguably a couple niche E2E encrypted open source programs, but surely that isn't at all comparable with proprietary big corporation vehicle software which have always notoriously been some of the worst privacy violating software around.

That's actually illegal in EU without consent. In this particular case, there's also specific ban on identifying the user with the cameras that the system may use. It's in the text, as a result we may hear from the tech companies how EU regulations are making it hard to do business even.

It’s illegal which is why when a government does it they either classify it or farm it out to an ally. Have you read any of what Snowden leaked?

You need to have the hardware(camera isn't enough, you need storage and way to transmit) in place to do these things. I guess Tesla's and other connected smart cars can do that already but that's not what this regulation requires.

You'd know the bad guys are Eastasia. Or is it Eurasia?

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