The Tesla cab camera has big privacy issues – consumer reports

Tesla’s new camera (no. 7 in the illustration above, from manual) looks at you, transmitting images and video along with data back to the company. Consumer Reports is not interested in this and has some privacy concerns. All this and more The morning shift for March 24, 2021.

1st gear: privacy concerns unlike what you get in a Cadillac

The latest Tesla has something called a “cab camera” that monitors the driver to see if the person is Paying attention. This is a critical part of Level 2 driver assistance systems such as Tesla.

While these cars can do a lot to drive you down a road, yes tons which they cannot do. The car will be forced to regularly hand over control to the driver, and if a driver fails to pay attention during one of these deliveries, things can get fatal. Having a camera in the car to digitally monitor drivers makes sense.

The problem with Tesla’s system is that it transmits real images and video, and can be delved into the video later. Consumer reports details:

Tesla driver-oriented camera located above the rearview mirror Model 3 i Model I the vehicles, which the carmaker calls a “cab camera,” are turned off by default. If drivers enable the cab’s camera, Tesla says it will capture and share a video clip of the moments prior to activating an accident or automatic emergency braking (AEB) to help the automaker “develop future security features and software enhancements, ”according to the Tesla website. Tesla did not respond to CR’s email request for additional information about its vehicle control systems.

[…]

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

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

Want a video driving a Tesla into Tesla’s hands? No, a lot, no. Tesla claims it won’t do anything detrimental to the data, but Consumer Reports notes that there’s nothing stopping Tesla from doing shady shit with it. Tesla is encouraged to do dirty things with video, really, how to use it to blame drivers, not protect them:

Instead, he says [Kelly Funkhouser, CR’s program manager for vehicle interface testing], Tesla seems to be using cameras for its own benefit. “We’ve already seen how Tesla blamed the driver for not paying attention immediately after news of an accident while a driver is using autopilot,” he says. “Now, Tesla can use video footage to show that a driver is distracted instead of addressing the reasons why the driver was not attentive in the first place.”

Nothing prevents Tesla from using all of this new consumer data “for other commercial purposes,” as Consumer Reports also explained. There are also more privacy issues, as passengers in the car do not necessarily consent to the recording, and even drivers who consent to it may not be aware of all the data Tesla collects.

My immediate thought when I saw this was that CR had to be skewed. Cadillac also has a camera that monitors drivers with its Super Cruise driver assistance system. It turns out that the Cadillac system is significantly safer for privacy Consumer reports sets:

A GM spokesman says vehicles equipped with Super Cruise driver assistance technology include a camera that works with infrared lights to determine the position of the driver’s head and eye. (This includes 2021 Cadillac CT4, CT5, i Climbing, and the next 2022 GMC Hummer EV.) If Super Cruise detects distraction or deterioration, it will trigger a growing 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.

In general, it seems that if you need a camera in the car, be sure to pay attention at all times, even as the car takes most of the control until everything goes wrong, the whole system itself is broken.

2nd gear: park your RAM outside because there is a fire risk withdrawal

Do you have a rugged RAM? Get him out of your cavernous garage, like Automotive news warn:

Stellantis recalls more than 20,000 heavy-duty Ram diesel trucks worldwide for a problem that could cause a fire in the engine compartment.

Affected vehicles include Ram 2500 and 3500 2021 pickups and 3500, 4500 and 5500 chassis cabs equipped with a 6.7-liter Cummins turbo diesel engine. In the United States, the withdrawal covers about 19,200 vehicles. It also covers an additional 685 vehicles in Canada and 223 in certain markets near North America.

In a document submitted to U.S. vehicle safety regulators, the automaker previously known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said the vehicles “may experience a fire in the engine compartment caused by an electrical short circuit in the intake air heater relay, which may cause a fire in the vehicle “, whether the contact is started or switched off.

I’m grateful you even have a garage big enough to fit a high-strength RAM in it, I guess.

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

Why wrap? If you launch a new brand of truck, go ahead and name it the way you want people to think about it: an indestructible mass of totally crushing steel. This is what the Great Wall has done Reuters reports:

Hina’s Great Wall Motor will launch a new independent brand for its all-terrain vehicles, said President Wei Jianjun, as carmakers chase new segments as sales in the world’s largest car market increase.

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

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

4th gear: Fiat is cutting toilets

Stellantis wants to cut costs, and that affects Fiat workers wherever it counts: their bathrooms. Fiat factories are cutting toilets and cleaning lathes Reuters reports, an unwise move during COVID:

The reduction in costs at Fiat’s factories in Italy has led to a reduction in cleaning services and the number of toilets available to workers, according to unions.

Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, the new group formed in January following the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group, said the production costs of factories in Italy are up to four times higher than in the plants of car manufacturers in France or Spain.

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

A good way to look like a terrible boss is to have a good time with the toilet situation.

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

There has been an eruption of concert conductor strikes in China and a new study points to a clear problem: their managers are algorithms. A new detailed study at the technology site rest of the world states:

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

A new study by Harvard researcher Ya-Wen Lei found that the way Chinese companies manage concert workers – operationally, legally, even down to the technology used – can make them more likely to strike or protest be their only recourse. Law research, published in American Sociological Review at the end of last month, suggests that the way technology platforms treat their workforce can feed into labor unrest and is presented as number of countries they are considering granting concert workers more rights than traditional employees.

Who could have guessed that being handled by a faceless and careless computer would leave workers feeling like strikes were the only resource?

Reverse: the oil spills of the good thing don’t happen anymore!