A woman said an Audi loaner car’s Lytx camera recorded her conversations, sparking privacy concerns over dealership fleet monitoring.
Oops, I cut the power cable to the camera when I picked up the loaner, my bad~
This is becoming a real concern. An ambulance company in my area has been found to have cameras facing the patients recording audio and video.
This shit is getting out of hand.
Edit: Replaced with a better link.
Ambulances in germany have a camera recording everything that is happening inside.
It protects the patients if the first responders fuck up or are psychos. And it protects the workers from false claim court cases.
Whats bad about that?
Hmm thinking about it, I guess in germany the ambulance is not run by companies.
Does this also mean they can’t discuss patient information around Alexa or Google Nest, or pretty much any smartphone? It’s really hard to not get your voice recorded and sent to the corponet these days.
Private conversations - doctors, security - can’t be held within earshot of Alexa or its ilk simply because the wake word triggers the sending of audio to America, which violates privacy and sovereignty regs in orgs that pay attention to the rules they all must adhere to and don’t want to be investigated.
This often means phones to be used near those conversations require some disabling of agent trash.
In the case of Alexa or Google Nest, it’s not actually constantly recording or sending stuff to the cloud. Those things have a special wake-word chip, that is trained on one or a few phrases (okay google). That’s fully offline, and only once it detects the wake word does it activate the actual microphone and processing.
If you believe Google and Amazon, that is. Which I surely don’t. But if they were actually constantly recording and sending that data somewhere, security researchers would have noticed odd traffic in their network.
Tl;dr: However they’re supposed to work you can’t trust them.
There’s no “chip.” Alexa, Google assistant, and Siri are always listening. They are looking for the command word, and in the case of Alexa and Google assistant they take at least a thirty second buffer from before the command word for “context.” It was verified several years ago (not sure if it has changed since) that Siri is the most conservative, stripping anything before the command word. All of this is handled in a subroutine that is running as part of the OS for these devices.
There have been documented cases where Alexa and Google devices were recording and uploading 24/7, these were dismissed as “bugs” but they were also only discovered because the users were checking network usage at home. I have not heard of that happening with Siri but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t.
Documented where? I’ve never been able to find any sources for that claim.
This was the one for the Google Home Mini… the fabric on the top was causing some of the devices to constantly record (there is a sensor up there that you could tap to ask a question instead of using the wake word). Once it was discovered Google disabled the tap feature.
I remember hearing about issues with Alexa also constantly recording some years ago, but I don’t recall the specifics of that case enough to be able to easily search for it.
Funny, I was just arguing with someone who swears up and down that no car company is actually doing this.
It’s the law that every US car company will be doing this soon!
Hey look, it is one of those things that would be great if it worked perfectly and never sent data out from the vehicle but since it won’t be perfect and it will absolutely be designed to send telemetry it will be a dystopian nightmare as the article points out.
I’m mostly in the same boat. It would be neat, but auto manufacturers have already started grumbling about the money it will cost to build one of these devices, and there’s no way they would fail to either
- pass this cost on to the consumer, or
- collect the data to sell later, or
- simply do both. Probably this one.
Money isn’t my objection. I think mandating safety equipment like back up cameras is a good thing.
This is fantasy tech that will never work reliably for the entire population and therefore it should not be required even if it was free.
Again, “safety” is how we get mass surveillance (protect the children ! Well except for the Epstein class thats fine). The backup camera led to screens. Which lead to more cameras. Tech is not good and needs to get out of cars.
I’m sorry, my backup camera is called the fucking mirrors or getting off your ass to look behind you if youre that unsure. Just last year I got backed into my car by a truck WITH CAMERAS and he “didnt see me” and thought he ran over a rock.
If youre so stupid you need a backup camera, you dont deserve a vehicle. Same with blind spot monitors. Use your eyes and this thing we have called a neck to turn your head.
0 of my cars have had cameras. I drive 20k miles a year ish, never been in an accident (which yes, is partially just luck, but I am a cautious driver with autosport experience).
And yes “if everyone was like me the world would be better”.
Back up cameras are awesome because you can see all the way to the ground. They are a massive safety benefit just like airbags, seat belts, and crumple zones.
Backup cameras existing are not the reason that their screens were misused for other negative purposes and you can’t blame them any more than you can blame better brakes for increasing vehicle weights because they are better at stopping.
Theyre fine, but then that shit is mandated and now suddenly every car is required to have a screen and no physical buttons with outdated shit software. Thats the issue. Tech will always lead to enshittification. I’d rather have none of it, and I’m pissed off that I have no choice, other than used cars, of which the US government crushed hundreds of thousands to further make us poorer and force us into new surveillance mobiles they can control on a whim.
What the fuck happened to being able to spec my car exactly as I want ? Thats why the mustang was such a success. You want a radio? Cool check the box. You dont want it? OK no problem dont check the box.
Want a camera? Get a kit you can install or have a shop install. It doesn’t need to be mandated.
That doesn’t exist now. You automatically get all these bullshit doodads no one wants or cares about that also make the car far more expensive and unreliable and unrepairable.
I don’t want a modem. I don’t want a screen. I don’t want electric seats. I don’t want cameras. Sure, I’ll take airbags and seatbelts, but none of that requires the other junk.
Drooling not grumbling, drooling. Major car manufacturer in europe actually advertised it. The other even put cops in the back seat.
And its very silent on major news Media. Wonder why. Should be mass outrage and riots.
That would be the dealership, not Audi themselves. On top of that she said she would have preferred paying for a rental car. Okay? Go ahead and pay for the rental. I’m not supporting putting cameras or audio recorders in loaners, but this woman/article is dumb.
What a dummy, not reading all the fine print and not spending hundreds of extra dollars to enjoy the privacy that a reasonable person would just expect
That’s not what I said at all. If you get in the car and realize you don’t want to be in that car and would rather pay for a rental, you can always pay for a rental. It is literally an option that you have. If you say you would rather pay for a rental and then you don’t, that is on you. It’s creepy, but the dealership can do what they want with their loaners they give to people for free. If you don’t like the free transportation provided by the dealership, don’t take the free transportation provided by the dealership. Not like she didn’t see the gigantic box in the car when she got in. Have your car serviced at a different dealership. Drop the car off and use alternate transportation. Call corporate and complain. But don’t say you would rather do an option available to you and then not choose that option.
She said she would have paid the $700 if she’d known the level of surveillance from the Lytx apparatus at the time. And you know not everybody can afford to pay $700 right? For a thing that’s basically necessary to exist for working Americans?
First of all, no she did not say that. Did you read the article? Not only did she not say that, it specifically says it is constantly monitoring you and telling you it is monitoring you by telling you what to do. I am unsure what you think you are getting out of lying? I already said I do not support this, I am just pointing out stupidity in this particular article.
You realize that many dealerships don’t offer free loaner cars at all right? People deal with not having transportation given to them while their car is being worked on every day. In fact, the majority of Americans are not given free transportation while their vehicle is being worked on when it breaks down. So your whole argument there goes right down the drain.
First of all, no she did not say that. Did you read the article?
Yeah, and I understand that time passes between signing an agreement and hearing your car beep at you from a device installed on the passenger side.
You realize that many dealerships don’t offer free loaner cars at all right? People deal with not having transportation given to them while their car is being worked on every day.
…Okay? And she got lucky, or thought she did, and now is apparently not in the position to pay $700 any more. Even if she is, plenty of people wouldn’t be.
Just keep getting angry about what you perceive instead of rightfully getting angry about the facts.
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