cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/technology/p/1247241/all-cars-sold-in-the-eu-now-require-a-camera-aimed-at-your-face-its-still-not-clear-wher
cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1247209/all-cars-sold-in-the-eu-now-require-a-camera-aimed-at-your-face-its-still-not-clear-wher
Starting July 7, 2026, every new car sold in the European Union must include a driver monitoring camera aimed at your face. Glance at your phone, your kids in the back seat, or the radio for too long, and the car will flash a warning light and sound an alert.
Automakers have known this was coming for years. What they, and EU regulators, have never spelled out is what happens to that footage after the alert goes off.
While the intention behind the new system is difficult to dispute, its implementation has raised several concerns. Early real-world testing suggests the distraction warnings can be overly sensitive and potentially distracting.
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Design rules only apply at the time of sale. After that, the car only needs to meet roadworthy requirements.
You should technically be able to gut the ECU and install a motec or haltech unit intended for a racecar. Start it with an ignition barrel like it’s 1999.
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That’s a massive project as the ECU is likely quite custom to the vehicle and it’s electronics, while the engine likely relies on those electronics. It’s an expensive specialist job that would take iterations to complete reliably. As I suggested in another comment, perhaps an initiative for a large privacy advocacy group.
The ECU wiring and mapping is a huge chunk of the work when fitting a turbo. The R&D overhead is large, which is why kits exist for common cars.
I wonder if anyone has replaced the ECU in a modern car. All the kits are for way older cars.
Better then just replacing the ECU, make it open source
Ooh a company in Ballarat. That’s quite local for me. They have no stock though :(
Still needs to pass inspection, and it won’t if their OBD thingy says X part (eg. the camera) is broken.
North America mostly does not inspect vehicles for safety.
Is that an inspection by the dealer that sold the car, or anyone else? In the UK and I assume many other places the roadworthiness test can be done at loads of different places and there is much less that they check. Pretty sure you don’t even need a functional speedometer although they will recommend fixing it.
I don’t know if it’s still a thing these days but when I was younger some of the lad I knew claimed to reinstall the cat and mid muffler for the MOT then reinstall their “race” parts.
I also might be wrong here but I think if police claim the car is unsafe then you have book the MOT to test if it’s unsafe. Not sure where that leaves the driver though, can they drive it home first? No idea.
I guess where it becomes a serious issue if when the driver of a bypassed car is in an accident and it goes to court. The car was seized at the place of the incident so never had features re-enabled.
A little piece of black electrical tape does wonders for these systems.
Depends on how the system is enabled. It can be enabled for theft control, so blocking the camera will not allow starting.
Little peice of paper with my face printed on it taped in front of the camera with the most focused facial expression I can summon