Tesla Cabin Camera has major privacy issues: consumer reports

Tesla’s new camera (# 7 in the illustration above, in manual) watches you, transmitting images and video along with the data back to the company. Consumer Reports is not enthusiastic about this and has some privacy concerns. All this and more in The morning shift for March 24, 2021.

1st gear: privacy issues different from what you get on a Cadillac

The newest Teslas have something called a “cabin camera”, which monitors the driver to see if the person is paying attention. That is a critical part in Level 2 driver assistance systems like Tesla’s.

While these cars can do a lot to guide you down a road, there are tonnes that they can’t do. The car will regularly be forced to hand over control to the driver, and if the driver is not paying attention during one of these transfers, things can get deathly fast. It makes sense to have a camera in the car to monitor drivers.

The problem with the Tesla system is that it transmits real images and videos, and that video can be explored later, as Consumer reports Details:

The Tesla driver-facing camera located above the rear-view mirror in Model 3 and Model Y vehicles – what the automaker calls the “cabin camera” – are turned off by default. If drivers enable the cabin camera, Tesla says it will capture and share a video clip of the moments before an accident or activation of automatic emergency braking (AEB) to help the automaker “develop future safety features and software enhancements. ”, According to the Tesla website. Tesla did not respond to CR’s email request for additional information about its in-car monitoring systems.

[…]

John Davisson, senior adviser to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), says that such closed-loop systems do not have the same privacy concerns as a system that records or transmits data or video.

“Whenever the video is being recorded, it can be accessed later,” says Davisson.

Do I want a video of me driving a Tesla in Tesla’s hands? No, not really. Tesla says it will not do anything nefarious with the data, but Consumer Reports notes that nothing stops Tesla from doing some obscure shit with them. Tesla is encouraged to do disgusting things with the video, like using it to blame drivers, not to protect them:

Instead, it says [Kelly Funkhouser, CR’s program manager for vehicle interface testing], Tesla appears to be using cameras for its own benefit. “We have already seen Tesla blaming the driver for not paying attention immediately after news of an accident while a driver was using autopilot,” she says. “Now, Tesla can use video footage to prove that a driver is distracted, rather than addressing the reasons why the driver was not paying attention in the first place.”

There is nothing to stop Tesla from using all of this new consumer data “for other business purposes”, as Consumer Reports also explained. There are even more privacy concerns, too, because passengers in the car do not necessarily consent to being recorded, and even drivers who consent may not be aware of all the data Tesla is collecting.

My immediate thought when I saw this was that CR must be biased. Cadillac also has a camera that watches drivers using its Super Cruise driver assistance system. It turns out that the Cadillac system is significantly more secure with regard to privacy, as Consumer reports outlines:

A GM spokesman says vehicles equipped with Super Cruise driver assistance technology have a camera that works with infrared lights to determine the driver’s eyes and head position. (This includes 2021 Cadillac CT4, CT5, and Climbing, and the next 2022 GMC Hummer EV.) If Super Cruise detects a distraction or disability, it will activate an increasing series of warnings for the driver to pay attention. The system does not capture images, store information or share image information with GM, the automaker told CR.

It generally seems that if you need a camera in your car, make sure you are paying attention at all times, even when your car takes over until the moment when everything goes wrong, the whole system itself is broken.

2nd gear: park the ram outside because there is a fire risk recall

Do you have a heavy Ram? Get him out of his cavernous garage, like Automotive News warns:

Stellantis is recalling more than 20,000 heavy diesel Ram trucks worldwide for an issue that could cause a fire in the engine compartment.

The affected vehicles include 2021 Ram 2500 and 3500 pickups and 3500, 4500 and 5500 chassis cabs equipped with a 6.7-liter Cummins turbo diesel engine. In the USA, the recall covers about 19,200 vehicles. It also covers 685 additional vehicles in Canada and 223 in certain markets outside North America.

On a document submitted to US vehicle safety regulators, the automaker formerly known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said that vehicles “may experience a fire in the engine compartment caused by an electrical short in the intake air heater relay, which can potentially lead to a fire in the vehicle,” be the ignition on or off.

Thank you for having a garage big enough to fit a heavy Ram there, I think.

3rd gear: new Chinese truck brand called “tank”

Why mess up? If you’re launching a new truck brand, just go ahead and call it what you want people to think: an indestructible mass of steel for total crushing. That’s what the Great Wall did, like Reuters reports:

Hina’s Great Wall Motor will launch a new autonomous brand for its off-road vehicles, said President Wei Jianjun, as automakers seek new segments when sales in the world’s largest automotive market increase.

Wei said that Great Wall, the country’s largest truck manufacturer, plans to launch the “Tank” brand during the Shanghai Motor Show this year in April.

If the Great Wall made any sense, it would offer a real tank at the top of the model range.

4th gear: Fiat is cutting toilets

Stellantis is looking to cut costs, and this is reaching Fiat workers where it matters: their bathrooms. Fiat factories are cutting toilets and cleaning shifts, as Reuters reports, a reckless move during COVID:

Cutting costs at Fiat’s factories in Italy has led to cuts in cleaning services and the number of bathrooms available to workers, according to the unions.

Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, the new group formed in January from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group, said that production costs in factories in Italy are up to four times higher than at the automaker’s factories in France or Spain.

Tavares said the automaker will not cut jobs or close factories, but promised more than 5 billion euros ($ 5.94 billion) a year in savings after the merger.

A good way to look like a horrible boss is to mess with the bathroom situation.

5th gear: Having an algorithm for a manager is dehumanizing and leads to strikes: study

There have been a series of strikes by concert pilots in China, and a new study points to a clear problem: their managers are algorithms. A new detailed study on the technology website rest of the world exposes:

Earlier this month, dozens of drivers as Chinese e-commerce giant Meituan took to the streets of the cities of Linyi, Shenzhen and Tongxiang to protest a new policy that reduced how much they were paid for delivery. The demonstrations are part of a growing reaction against e-commerce companies in China about how they treat their workers. Although there were fewer protests in 2020 during the pandemic, strikes in China involving delivery drivers increased almost five times between 2018 and 2019, according to an estimate. In January, a driver set himself on fire in Taizhou City to protest unpaid wages.

A new study Harvard researcher Ya-Wen Lei found that the way Chinese companies manage gig workers – operationally, legally, even with respect to the technology used – can make them more likely to feel that a strike or protest is its only resource. Law Research, published in American Sociological Review end of last month, suggests that the way technology platforms treat their workforce can fuel labor concerns and emerges as a number of countries are considering giving show workers more rights than traditional workers.

Who would have thought that being managed by a faceless and indifferent computer would leave workers feeling that strikes are their only resource?

Reverse: Good Thing Oil spills don’t happen anymore!