Self-driving cars are surveillance cameras on wheels

I think it&#x27;s unfortunate that this will snarl up pedestrians, cyclists, and other road users. At the same time: the relative lack of surveillance on drivers, especially industrial drivers, has always struck me as strange. There are very few things that are as disproportionately powerful and dangerous as a individual behind the wheel of a car; relative to the destruction that a distracted or impatient driver can cause, there&#x27;s remarkably little surveillance that can support their victims in court.<p>(This is separate from this footage eventually being used to sell ads, as well as it being used non-consensually to &quot;investigate&quot; other crimes. I think Schneier is right to highlight concerns around the latter.)

I think it is unlikely from a simple reason: Today when you will buy &quot;connected&quot; car the manufacturer wants YOU to pay the internet bill for your car. But what are your incentives to pay internet for the car, when you likely already have internet in your phone? Nil.<p>It is nice mind experiment that cars could theoretically spy on everyone, but hitting some practical problems, like who is paying for traffic from a car to some datacenter which will be in high megabytes every second? Who pays for petabytes of data to store every hour? Who pays for massive server clusters to search through those data when you need them?

If your social credit score is poor, the self driving car can lock the doors and drive you to jail.<p>Alternatively, a hacker can kidnap you. :D

Also interesting to watch: &quot;Why the US mandating all new cars having a remote ‘kill switch’ by 2026 is problematic&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;a50GHA_uchU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;a50GHA_uchU</a>

What freaks me out is the transition to electric handbrake. That thing was meant to be manual, no electricity, nothing, ever.

I doubt that real self-driving cars will ever be a thing. OK, assisted driving on prepared streets (e.g. highways today or wie roads with some electronic markers in the future) but as soon as you enter smaller roads which are at most as wide as 1.5 cars the &quot;fun&quot; will begin. I could offer some dashcam videos of many such roads here in Europe.<p>Just imagine people accustomed to highly assisted driving in a metropolitan area suddenly forced to take over when two cars cannot manage to pass each other on such roads.<p>So I liked to watch &quot;There&#x27;s no such thing as a Self Driving Car - A MOTOMANTV RANT&quot; by a car journalist here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;8NJQCyv6BSk" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;8NJQCyv6BSk</a>

Yes, I predict when transport becomes completely automated, bicycles will be the most free way to travel (even more than walking).

Technically, we are surveillance cameras on feet.

There are so many things wrong with the current model of vehicles. It is all made to suite the producer.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reviewgeek.com&#x2F;111381&#x2F;you-dont-really-ever-own-an-ev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reviewgeek.com&#x2F;111381&#x2F;you-dont-really-ever-own-a...</a><p>[2] The Hated One Your Car Is a Better Spy than Facebook <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WX2SWUMt_fk">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WX2SWUMt_fk</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hothardware.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;bidens-infrastructure-bill-mandatory-backdoor-car-kill-switch" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hothardware.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;bidens-infrastructure-bill-mand...</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2023&#x2F;may&#x2F;26&#x2F;tesla-data-leak-customers-employees-safety-complaints" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2023&#x2F;may&#x2F;26&#x2F;tesla-dat...</a><p>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doubleagent.net&#x2F;2023&#x2F;05&#x2F;21&#x2F;a-car-battery-monitor-tracking-your-location" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doubleagent.net&#x2F;2023&#x2F;05&#x2F;21&#x2F;a-car-battery-monitor-tra...</a><p>[6] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;07&#x2F;hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;07&#x2F;hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...</a>

Self driving cars have been only a few years out for how long now? So much money has been dumped into them and it’s not unreasonable to imagine that they may never be “good enough”.<p>Frankly with higher interest rates and reduced investment, it’s easier to imagine research being scaled back than true self driving cars becoming generally available.

Great! I just installed a front and rear camera system in my new car since my last one was totaled by a hit and run driver in a busy intersection. The (off duty) police officer who saw the whole thing told me it would be useless to call the authorities without a license plate number. Fool me once.

Why are self-driving cars singled out in this article? I have a 2015 Subaru Forester that I wired up with front and back cameras. My brother&#x27;s brand new Silverado has a 360 degree view camera that constantly records stuff too.

Why do self-driving cars store the videos at all (apart from a subset that was notified by the operator for further review)? Given the number of cameras and angles, the storage cost must be far from negligible.

&quot;Surveillance capitalism&quot; companies should be charged with stalking: their goal is to collect all info on all people, placed, and things. And they ought to be charged as accomplices to anyone using their datasets to facilitate criminal activity. I know... it&#x27;s an unpopular and unrealistic opinion.

Previously: smartphones, vacuum robots, smart doorbells.<p>What else needs to be uncloaked as surveillance technology before people stop trusting big tech?

Like any technology, like the internet or guns, it can be used for good or ill. The real line of defense to bad tech uses should be at the societal level, with a fallback to the legal level. If people want surveillance tech spying on them (to reduce crime, etc) then no amount of legal prohibition or technological safeguards will stop it.

Not sure why this fear is exclusive to self driving vehicles. I have two ICE vehicles that both have multiple cameras on the exterior and 4g connectivity. Lot of mid priced cars now come with these cameras for collision avoidance , lane keep and other uses.

Just waiting for Tesla to offer an API of near real time street view data. They could likely already do it.

iirc owner access to the cameras on Teslas is pretty limited (and finicky). I thought it would be great if Tesla footage could automatically hook into the AMBER alert database.

Is there any jurisdiction in the world where people are guaranteed a right to privacy in public spaces? And if there were, in what impossible-to-imagine way would that possibly be enforced? I think the fight for an expanded right to privacy should be focused on realistic goals, not this kind of paranoid all-or-nothing nonsense. If you don&#x27;t want to be recorded in public there is one and only one solution.<p>Stay inside.