Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/tesla-sentry-mode-police-evidence-19731000.php

by danso • 2 years ago

283 653 2 years ago

m0llusk• 2 years ago

It's happening. Cameras everywhere all the time. No more anonymity in public soon. Hopefully this will improve behavior generally, though at possibly great cost.

righthand14• 2 years ago

People will move out of the cities onto land where they can remove/shoot down cameras. The cities and policing are too aggressive with their big brother tactics, thinking FUD about crime is a good enough reason to take away privacy from people. It is actually a minority opinion that the country wants this but no one votes in local elections anymore so the minority wins.

Loughla2• 2 years ago

It's illegal, even in rural areas, to shoot down drones.

Also it's not drones that are an issue. It's ring cameras and car cameras and CCTV cameras.

klyrs5• 2 years ago

People will move out of the cities onto land where they can remove/shoot down cameras

People interested in method Mad Max LARPing are significantly overrepresented on HN.

kibwen• 2 years ago

People will move out of the cities onto land where they can remove/shoot down cameras.

No, this doesn't help in the slightest unless you're moving to an isolated compound with no contact with the outside world. As soon as you get in your car to drive to the grocery store, you'll be subject to all the same surveillance. And if you're going to try to organize in your community to tear down and outlaw all the cameras between your house and the grocery store, you'll have an easier time of organizing in denser areas (not necessarily cities, but at least small towns).

chacha102• 2 years ago

This makes me _not_ want to get a Tesla, just to avoid the inconvenience of getting my car towed because of what it _might_ have inside of it. And the opposite, doing what Ring is doing and simply streaming it to the police directly, might be easier but I still believe a major privacy concern.

Sure, it could be helpful. But at what cost?

gruez21• 2 years ago

This makes me _not_ want to get a Tesla, just to avoid the inconvenience of getting my car towed because of what it _might_ have inside of it.

From the article:

Therriault said he and other officers now frequently seek video from bystander Teslas, and usually get the owners’ consent to download it without having to serve a warrant. Still, he said, tows are sometimes necessary, if police can’t locate a Tesla owner and need the video “to pursue all leads.”

They're not towing cars at first opportunity.

bigstrat20032• 2 years ago

The fact that they're doing it at all is completely unacceptable.

conception• 2 years ago

So they say in the interview. Irregardless, if I own a car and it is legal for the police to take it so they can hold onto it until they have a warrant of I give in? No thanks.

tamimio4• 2 years ago

My car isn’t a Tesla, and the dashcam has a “parking mode” that records everything while parked. So, do that, don’t get a Tesla, and never get towed to access the camera.

gruez21• 2 years ago

If the police sees the dashcam and suspects that there's footage on there, they can apply for a search warrant and seize that footage as well. It's unclear why they needed to tow the tesla in the first place. The article says that the footage is on a USB drive, so presumably they could just pull it out and make a copy. If they're towing it because they couldn't locate the owner and want to open the car non-destructively, then your suggestion of not driving a dashcam and using a tesla probably isn't going to save you either.

darth_avocado2• 2 years ago

I used to keep my Sentry mode on all the time. Then my car got broken into twice. The police didn’t bother to follow up despite having a video footage of what happened. Now I never turn it on. And now police wants to tow vehicles for the footage.

gruez21• 2 years ago

The article mentions that they tried towing a car because they were investigating someone who got shot and stabbed. While it'd be nice if police could investigate every type of crime, I don't see the contradiction between "police didn't follow up about your car being broken into despite footage" and "police towed a car to get footage about someone getting shot and stabbed"

darth_avocado2• 2 years ago

While it'd be nice if police could investigate every type of crime

That’s literally their job, which they get paid for. But anyway, my comment was more referring to the fact that if they had done their job, I’d be more open to keeping my Sentry mode on.

cryptoegorophy• 2 years ago

It saved me $2000 bill by recording a hit an runner

letmeinhere• 2 years ago

Can you elaborate why? As in, you got hit by an insured driver and so your insurance was able to bill them, whereas you didn't have collision coverage of your own?

telcal• 2 years ago

It saved me a lot more. I was parked on my street and a garbage truck sideswiped the front driver side corner. The truck driver said it wasn't his fault and the car was parked too far from the curb but the videos showed what really happened.

y-c-o-m-b• 2 years ago

I don't turn it on simply because it drains an absurd amount of battery. I don't even understand why it does so. Is it old tech? My Blink cameras have 2 AA Lithium batteries that take motion-activated video all day on a busy side-walk for at least a couple of months. Yet one shopping trip drains like 2% battery in Sentry mode, wtf? That's a lot.

MarkMarine• 2 years ago

I’ve wondered this myself, how could 50 miles of moving 5000lbs at 60mph be equal to sitting running a camera for a day or two.

When I had a model 3 it also had an absurd amount of drain over night, 4-5% battery when it was just sitting there (without overheat A/C)

Leaving for vacation before I had a home charger was always fraught.

Tempest19812• 2 years ago

You're comparing a motherboard with dual CPUs at 12+ cores each, a GPU, and 16GB of RAM -- to perhaps an ESP32. Very different design goals.

thebruce87m• 2 years ago

The blink camera has a PIR sensor that wakes it up so it starts recording video. It doesn’t record video the whole time and running the PIR is not energy intensive.

The Tesla has to run the cameras and run computer vision algorithms to determine if something is happening.

akira25017• 2 years ago

I was watching a youtube video about the "Kia Boys." A group of young men who made a lifestyle out of stealing Kia vehicles with flawed anti theft systems installed.

What interested me is that they make a habit of connecting their personal phone to the entertainment systems of vehicles they steal. They then use the large list of connected devices in their phone to brag about their stature as criminals.

Which is hilarious because it's not only evidence that connects them to a rash of vehicle thefts, but it also means every stolen vehicle retains evidence of who _precisely_ stole that vehicle.

The police don't seem to have a clue. The criminals surely don't.

mixtureoftakes• 2 years ago

all while some people spend their entire lives obsessing about privacy without even doing anything illegal...

alkonaut2• 2 years ago

Is it legal to film anywhere? In Sweden filming in public places with fixed equipment (a car counts apparently) is illegal. But on the other hand any evidence is admitted in court, even material obtained while breaking a law. So there has been a few cases where police have caught the person vandalizing the car and also needed to consider whether to fine the owner.

dghlsakjg2• 2 years ago

In the US, it is legal to film anywhere public (out on the street, in a government building, etc). You can even film inside of private establishments (restaurants, stores) until you have been asked to stop.

This is part of the protection of free speech and press. You cannot use the footage gathered for commercial purposes without permission of people you filmed. Journalism for pay, and art for pay are not considered commercial purposes.

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

Genuine question: What is stopping some small percent of drivers from installing cameras and using ML to identify cars driving dangerously (e.g. speeding, running reds, changing multiple lanes at once, etc.), and when their license plate is identifiable, finding and informing their insurance company?

If even a small subset of users did this, and insurers did something with this information, it would substantially disincentivize driving like a complete maniac.

Are insurers unable to use this information? Are they afraid of the backlash from being the first to accept this information? Is there some legal reason this isn't doable?

freejazz7• 2 years ago

If even a small subset of users did this, and insurers did something with this information, it would substantially disincentivize driving like a complete maniac.

People who drive like complete maniacs aren't doing so rationally. It's called "road rage" not "road reason."

gruez21• 2 years ago

Disagree. While "maniacs" could include road rage behavior (eg. brakechecking someone), it also arguably encompasses other risky behavior that's not obviously associated with "road rage", like speeding or aggressive weaving/lane changes.

sodality2• 2 years ago

I disagree - people do it because they are angry, and _also_ because they're unlikely to get caught. Far less people commit hit&runs, because there's a much higher chance of getting caught.

bravetraveler• 2 years ago

May not even have insurance, it's a coin toss

CamperBob22• 2 years ago

In most cases, it's a devil's brew of "Speed limits that are set too low" and "Drivers that aren't taught how to use lanes properly."

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

My superficial understanding of research on deterring criminal behavior (so, I may be bullshitting) is that it's more effective to make the likelihood of getting caught high than making the punishment severe.

So this might be an effective (and cheap, compared to fiery auto crashes and arrests) way to discourage that behavior.

And if someone does not respond to the initial incentive, their insurance rates would continue to climb, so at some point in time they either end up uninsured (in which case, this sousveillance really ought to just inform the cops, but anyway, the opinion in this thread is that cops are useless, so YMMV) or fix their behavior.

0xcafefood• 2 years ago

It would probably have "disproportionate impact."

It's really the job of police forces to act on maniac drivers. And they stopped doing so in 2020 for the same reason.

oxide• 2 years ago

I lived in east Oakland for awhile, I'm pretty sure that driving stolen cars and torching them afterward don't give a fuck about auto insurance rates. The people who are driving like that on the 580 or @ 90th & Bancroft probably are uninsured as is.

Do you really think everyone is just insured because it's the law? If so, you're fairly naive. Try leaving the bubble you live in now and then. Oakland cops stopping responding to anything less than murder at lot sooner than 2020 lmao.

IncreasePosts5• 2 years ago

Disproportionate impact is already acceptable with insurance, because they know for example that the average young woman drives safer than the average young man. And charges them as such.

renewiltord2• 2 years ago

They might have been in the past and it's not a bad idea for a data aggregator company to enable crowdsourcing to make the data palatable to insurers but AI video is advanced enough to obscure the plates and change the car model slightly.

croes3• 2 years ago

So they still drive like maniacs but without insurance.

croes3• 2 years ago

Next step, we all wear body cams and they identify people with inappropriate behavior.

For every mistake you get a point and with enough point a punishment.

Sounds familiar.

gruez21• 2 years ago

I mean, that already kinda happens today? Everyone carries a camera in their pocket, and public freakouts are recorded and posted on the internet, leading to social consequences for the person in question.

tamimio4• 2 years ago

Yeah, I am personally against that as well. Enforcing laws is a police job, not the average citizen's, because they “supposedly” undergo certain training to do that. If everyone started acting like a police officer or reporting insignificant things, it would get chaotic, and it incentivizes people being hostile against each other. The only exception, in my opinion, is someone reporting something that’s substantially bad, like a homicide.

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

I'm honestly surprised that businesses in shady areas don't have ubiquitous cameras around their properties and signs that "just do your crime one block away, that's all I ask". (Presumably that invites vandalism and there are consequently practical issues, but has no one pulled this off?)

lurking_swe3• 2 years ago

you conveniently left out the fact that anyone driving a car or truck is driving a dangerous vehicle that can trivially kill or maim others. Driving is supposed to be a privilege, not a right. That comes with responsibility.

How you think this is the same as “being naughty while walking outside” is hilarious to me.

lr4444lr3• 2 years ago

I doubt it'd tell them any more than they already know. These drivers tend to have been given citations already.

The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. NYC already has something like this for people who catch too-long idling trucks and photograph/video record it.

barbazoo• 2 years ago

Do insurers really know about citations?

pixl97• 2 years ago

The level of crazy driving to citations is rather low.

mullingitover3• 2 years ago

The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine.

I've heard lots of talk of civil war in this country, but this is the first serious plan I've seen for how to start one.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine.

I don't know where you live, but around me, the police are so disinterested in traffic safety that roads have turned into a Mad Max free-for-all. Red light running, stop sign running, lack of signaling, weaving in and out of lanes, and general belligerence on the road. That and 90% of drivers are playing on their smartphones. Police departments could get infinite money by just opening their eyes and pulling nearly anyone over.

bsder• 2 years ago

The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine.

This is 200% in the wrong direction.

We should be removing the incentive for the justice system to benefit from collected money at all let alone expanding it.

"Incentivized" justice is gigantic moral hazard. The system will invent "crimes" in order to keep the money flowing.

andylynch• 2 years ago

Insurers may not be the best recipients given most of those things are criminal matters.

In my country, most police forces accept dashcam evidence from other road users, and will prosecute on it. It’s seen be the police as a great road safety tool.

paulryanrogers• 2 years ago

Is there a risk such video could be fabricated to frame someone for a crime they didn't commit, or even that never happened?

zer00eyz• 2 years ago

Why would they need to do this when the car makers give them all the data they want already?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driv...

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

This seems to indicate that it shares data on the car itself, not on other drivers :/

steelframe2• 2 years ago

My car doesn't spy on me. I've pulled the Data Communications Module fuse.

23B1• 2 years ago

Great question.

There is nothing stopping them.

Which is why a privacy amendment must be passed and enforced with ruthless abandon if we don't want to pave the way for – and eventually become – an Orwellian panopticon in the service of authoritarians.

xattt• 2 years ago

ALPR units are used the license plate recognition already.

tamimio4• 2 years ago

It won’t work as you expect. Most of these drivers don’t have insurance. Second, you might make things worse, as now you have other Karen-like drivers who will eventually start threatening other people to report them, and that will escalate a situation from flipping a bird to a more dangerous situation. I sometimes watch dashcam rage videos on YouTube, and these drivers won’t care or even become more aggressive once told there’s a dashcam. This is not to mention the questionable results of ML that could report false positives.

IncreasePosts5• 2 years ago

It's not clear to me how you can claim most of these drivers don't have insurance.

Also. Nothing is stopping Karen's from reporting things right now. So what if they do? If you've done nothing wrong then the reviewer would just trash it. And probably put Karen's reports in the "immediately discard" pile in the future if she sends in frivolous claims all the time.

FormerBandmate• 2 years ago

Honestly using it for actual serious violent crimes is way better than speeding

DriverDaily• 2 years ago

Karen-like drivers who will eventually start threatening other people to report them,

That's an argument for automating the system, taking the biased human actor out of the process.

jrflowers2• 2 years ago

What is stopping some small percent of drivers from installing cameras and using ML to identify cars driving dangerously (e.g. speeding, running reds, changing multiple lanes at once, etc.), and when their license plate is identifiable, finding and informing their insurance company?

What has stopped you from doing that personally?

porphyra• 2 years ago

Nobody has developed that yet and OP might not have the skills to do so, but if an easy-to-install github repo were available then the lowered barrier to entry might make it possible. Theoretically, Teslas already know how fast every car around them is going and how they are driving, as evidenced by the 3D "FSD visualization", but I am guessing that piping this information out to rat out the reckless drivers is going to be super hard.

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

I would! But I have a job and side projects that take up my time.

IncreasePosts5• 2 years ago

I've done it. When i saw a driver run a red light (intentionally, they slowed down, and then gunned it through) and almost killed 3 people legally crossing the street.

It took a while though. Maybe 10 minutes in total to pull the dashcam clip and upload it to YouTube.

morkalork2• 2 years ago

Where I live, speeding and red light cameras can only issue fines to the plate holder and don't affect the demerit points of the driver because they don't have evidence of who was driving the vehicle. I imagine it would go the same way with insurance. Unless a cop pulls the person over and gets their ID, tough luck.

lalaithion• 2 years ago

The comment you’re responding to is postulating enforcement via higher insurance costs. If insurance gets ~20 reports of someone running a red light, maybe they’ll double the cost to insure that person.

kragen• 2 years ago

you could report anyone you disliked, as long as you could find out what their car looked like, even if they weren't speeding or running reds etc. convincingly editing the traffic light color in a video doesn't even require artificial neural networks. trump voters in progressive communities, for example, or progressive voters in right-wing communities

rayiner• 2 years ago

We should do this for HOV violators.

kjkjadksj4• 2 years ago

The same thing that allows drivers to run red light cameras and cover their face with their hand

tgsovlerkhgsel• 2 years ago

In Europe, this would most likely be considered a violation of various privacy rules (specifics depend on country, but could include criminal penalties for the person doing this).

In the US, I could totally see that happening.

mig39• 2 years ago

Technically, dashcams are illegal in some European countries.

whaleofatw20223• 2 years ago

Ford AFAIK actually has a patent of some sort for this [0]

[0] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a61793292/ford-cop-cars-sp...

sschueller• 2 years ago

In Switzerland it would be the law preventing that.

Running ML on public footage of people who did not consent is a huge no-no.

Dashcams are already a problem and technically illegal although tolerated. The footage can't generally be used on court.

moate5• 2 years ago

Swiss privacy law is absolutely insane to me both for the protection it provides (good) but also for the protection it provides(bad). I guess all tools are weapons in the right hands.

Der_Einzige2• 2 years ago

Very very good, and I want more societies which give a bigger middle finger to the karens of their world.

joshu2• 2 years ago

https://www.getnexar.com/

monkeywork13• 2 years ago

Just tossing a product link into the discussion without any context isn't overly useful - why are you recommending (or are you) and why should I be clicking on that?

rootusrootus• 2 years ago

Given the potential for abuse, the insurance company probably can't really do much aside from writing a letter to the driver saying someone observed them driving dangerously.

Probably the letter should be more specific, include pictures, and it should not be entirely anonymous. You should be able to find out if someone is trying to make trouble for you.

It might not even be legally possible anyway. Insurance companies have a lot of regulation.

pmichaud• 2 years ago

Setting aside the obvious dystopian next steps, I think the main problem with automated traffic law enforcement is that our laws are quite bad in the sense that they rely on enforcement being loose and somewhat subjective to even work at all. The speeds on various roads, the timing of traffic lights, the places one can park and for how long, etc, are not carefully planned or thought out enough to actually work if everyone were to strictly adhere to them. It all works because lots of people can briefly park in illegal places, choose reasonable times to speed, or reasonable moments to use the shoulder to go around obstructions, etc.

Obviously you capture some craziness on the margin that you want to capture, but also on the margin is the fudging that makes the whole thing work at all.

mft_• 2 years ago

I’m struggling to understand your point, or to imagine many examples which support it.

I agree that brief minor parking infringements may occasionally make people’s lives more efficient; but I can’t think of any examples where traffic lights and speed limits need to be routinely disregarded?

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

I would think that once enforcement becomes automated (and thus applies to those with resources, who currently get away with it), there would be a lot of pressure on the legislature (by those who currently get away with it) to make the rules better. Legislatures can move fast, but only when they're motivated. e.g. if every NYC taxi suddenly got a ticket every time they stopped in the street to pick up a passenger, those laws would be updated very quickly.

soerxpso2• 2 years ago

The loose laws you describe are a problem that needs to be solved regardless, because they allow for selective enforcement against specific people or demographics by police departments acting in bad faith. A law that everyone is technically breaking but is generally not enforced can be used to target ethnic groups, or individuals that a particular police officer has a personal vendetta against. It essentially turns the police into judges, because it gives them the guaranteed ability to get a conviction somehow against anyone they want.

I assume a way for any civilian to activate those laws against any other civilian would result in the legal code being cleaned up quite quickly.

TomK324• 2 years ago

It's not laws that are bad, it's the infrastructure. Wide roads that give the driver the feeling that it is safe to drive a 60 mph when the sign says 45.

throwaway484764• 2 years ago

Often when they are meticulously designed it is for revenue generation and not safety.

jonny_eh3• 2 years ago

Insurance isn't the same as law enforcement, not even close.

jdietrich• 2 years ago

Here in the UK, the police actively encourage the public to submit dashcam footage of motoring offences.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-64386371

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/driving-1/2021-02/one-in-f...

kelnos14• 2 years ago

Oof, conditioning people to tattle on their neighbors. That's never gone horribly wrong... /s

paradox460• 2 years ago

Back when I used to cross the San Mateo bridge frequently, I'd see the same group of drivers routinely driving dangerously and breaking multiple laws. I had dashcam footage. I once called up CHP and asked if they wanted it. They politely told me where to shove it

The police don't want to enforce the laws that are written. They don't even pull over drivers without license plates.

kenjackson• 2 years ago

Problem is there is no punishment to the criminals. Why risk your life/job just to have the criminal released hours later.

I was a big believer of police reform, but realized the whole system was broken and police are just a symptom. And most actors are actually behaving somewhat rationally.

The sad part is criminals are finally realizing this. I have a cousin who hangs with a “crowd” and it’s amazing how prolific and bold some are. And how many people know about the crimes and no one really says anything. And apparently police know about a lot of it too, but apparently a case that prosecutors will take is an exceptionally high bar.

_moof• 2 years ago

As much as I think I'd love to be able to write traffic tickets during my commutes, I don't think anyone wants to live in a world where everyone is a cop.

I think you'll find too that a lot of people think laws are for other people. My speeding is totally justified.

Swizec• 2 years ago

As someone who speeds on highways (but not in cities/towns), I wish more people sped. The left lane is for crime, get out of the way.

alexvitkov• 2 years ago

"The Snitch-mobile"

hnburnsy3• 2 years ago

Genuine question: What is stopping some small percent of drivers from installing cameras and using ML to identify cars driving dangerously (e.g. speeding, running reds, changing multiple lanes at once, etc.), and when their license plate is identifiable, finding and informing their insurance company?

GM is already doing this, look it up.

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

Do you have more info about this?

eddd-ddde• 2 years ago

I have 100% thought about a drivers rating system where users rate other drivers.

Even better, not only notify insurance companies, but notify other drivers that the idiot in front of them is dangerous so they can react.

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

The touch screen in a Tesla could easily surface such information about the cars around them. That's great

steelframe2• 2 years ago

not only notify insurance companies

I can immediately think of half a dozen ways this would be abused.

The clique of brats in their daddies' Teslas at Sammamish High School bully the unpopular kid.

Black guy who drives through predominately white neighborhoods in the deep south.

Prius with a Harris/Walz bumper sticker in eastern Idaho.

Need I go on?

johnisgood11• 2 years ago

You should watch Black Mirror.

pdar41232• 2 years ago

Seems like a great idea. The police should do this… bring back red light cameras and automated speed traps.

duped2• 2 years ago

Red light cameras have perverse incentives that have led to municipal corruption and made intersections more dangerous.

hightrix• 2 years ago

Sure, only if they take a look at every speed limit in America and readjust them to be realistic for modern cars.

rbalicki10• 2 years ago

Responses here seem to not take into account:

- elasticity of laws. If all of a sudden every well-to-do law-abiding doctor, engineer and lawyer gets a fine on their daily commute for speeding 5 mph over the limit, there's going to instantly be a lot of pressure to change the speed limit to something reasonable.

- the amount of absolutely insane, dangerous behavior on the highways (people weaving in and out at 100 mph, etc.). It may be tough for an insurance company to act on a tip that someone changed lanes without using their blinkers, it certainly won't be tough if there's video evidence of them going 100 mph.

- the fact that insurance companies (presumably) do not need to know the identity of the driver to raise rates. If your car is regularly being driven by your brother at 100mph, it's still your insurance that's going to pay if he gets in an accident.

- while the police sound like they've given up on enforcing any traffic laws, it's in the insurance company's financial interest not to insure dangerous drivers. (And while that's sad, maybe private sousveillance is better than anarchy. People can have differing opinions.)

kelnos14• 2 years ago

If your car is regularly being driven by your brother at 100mph, it's still your insurance that's going to pay if he gets in an accident.

Not if your brother isn't listed as an insured party on your insurance. The insurance company will tell you to pound sand in that case. And if your brother is on your insurance, and you're paying for it and giving him a free ride, that's on you.

And while that's sad, maybe private sousveillance is better than anarchy. People can have differing opinions.

::raises hand:: We shouldn't accept either. Private surveillance is not the solution to anarchically poor enforcement.

m4632• 2 years ago

It's an ROA, like an HOA, but for everywhere.

I wonder if folks could wear an emitter mask to prevent identification of their face? (like a hockey mask but covered in bright IR LEDs to confuse cameras)

Aurornis• 2 years ago

This is an idea that only sounds good when you imagine it being applied to the drivers you dislike.

When people started getting higher insurance rates because a vigilante dashcam operator caught them driving 68 in a 65 three different times or because they only slowed to 1MPH instead of 0MPH at a 4-way stop, then it wouldn't seem like such a good idea any more.

39896880• 2 years ago

Informing the insurance company… how? Everything done by a large corp like an insurer has a specific workflow. There is no form to upload a video of someone behaving badly. Emailing some rando at Geico with an mp4 is going to be met with total indifference because the corporate drone answering whatever emails aren’t autoreplied or spamcanned will have no process by which to respond

froggit2• 2 years ago

There's no way insurance companies haven't already done the cost-benefit analysis for implementing a way to take videos from randos and turning it into actionable rate hikes. If it were favorable to their bottom lines there'd already be a link to "submit evidence" on every insurer's home page.

akira25017• 2 years ago

it would substantially disincentivize driving like a complete maniac.

You are presuming that the manics are otherwise legally entitled to drive and have valid insurance. It should be no surprise to learn that they, very largely, do not.

They already don't care about your incentive system.

lolinder10• 2 years ago

It's so very HN that we get into fits about Google and Facebook and Apple and so on tracking us to make a buck, but the idea of an insurance company deputizing millions of cameras to perform mass surveillance to make a buck is suddenly okay because drivers that make us angry on the road get hurt by it.

The obvious answer to this proposal is that I believe that I have a right to not be monitored and penalized by autonomous algorithms, and I'm not ready to compromise on that right just because some people drive dangerously. All of the same arguments HN will reliably raise against algorithmic anything apply here, but apparently that all goes out the window when cars become involved.

unshavedyak2• 2 years ago

but the idea of an insurance company deputizing millions of cameras to perform mass surveillance to make a buck is suddenly okay because drivers that make us angry on the road get hurt by it.

I'd word it more like drivers who put me and others around me in danger should be punished for driving recklessly.

globular-toast2• 2 years ago

The difference is it's in public. Google et al wants to get into your private life. Nobody is talking about watching you race cars on a private track.

jonny_eh3• 2 years ago

to make a buck

And to make roads safer.

gWPVhyxPHqvk• 2 years ago

One of the first things you learn when you get your drivers license is that you don't have the same rights on public roads as you do off the roads, or in private (such as requirements for carrying up-to-date license, breathalyzers, etc).

hindsightbias• 2 years ago

What makes you think the drivers who drive that way have insurance?

magnetowasright• 2 years ago

The proliferation of dash cams and the (...paltry) threat of having footage of bad behaviour put on the internet, or more importantly, having proof of what happened in an incident/accident to be able to pass onto insurance or police (where there's consequences from determining fault, theoretically) hasn't magically stopped people driving like homicidal maniacs, has it?

There's a million reasons why a dystopic snitch on your neighbours program isn't practical, as others have highlighted. I love the idea that insurance companies would be afraid of backlash lol. There's also easier options like I imagine asking car manufacturers to hand over data collected on driver behaviour would be. Don't US insurers already collect data like that from willing customers? Why not get that data from all customers regardless of consent? We've seen time and time again that most car manufacturers will throw all the data they can at whichever corporation asks for it. Even lower tech than that, speed and red light cameras have existed for a long time and they work on vehicles regardless of how many touchscreen tablets have been glued into it. Stupid(er) comment time: even lower tech again, the potential threat of gun violence in road rage incidents doesn't seem to disincentivise driving like a homicidal maniac, judging by how much worse US dash cam captured accidents seem to be compared to those from Europe or Australia. Maybe that's more to do with how many giant yank tanks there are on US roads and how much more effective they are at obliterating other road users and the sense of safety that comes with driving such huge things?

Jokes aside, road safety is a complex problem and insurance companies have other ways to protect their interests with significantly less effort.

throwaway20379• 2 years ago

Maybe insurers will pay bounty for it. Mostly, you want to get rid of dangerous drivers, not just charge them more!

globular-toast2• 2 years ago

That was my first thought upon reading the headline. Did your car witness a crime? Yes, literally hundreds every time it hits the road. Most drivers break the law every single journey. Many do it egregiously.

lofaszvanitt• 2 years ago

People already police others, there is no need for a complete psycho society where everyone is a potential snitch. Plus, a few minutes of speeding and shouting helps to calm people. Now imagine that people cannot even use their expensive car for speeding... where will people vent their aggression?

BenFranklin1004• 2 years ago

Freedom requires both Liberty and Privacy. An all-seeing state will destroy Liberal society.

Reform requires reform of both the government and industry. Industry will happily gather the data and the state will then buy it from industry as a means to circumvent the 4th amendment.

https://reason.com/2024/08/20/how-the-feds-buy-their-way-aro...

Aloisius2• 2 years ago

What does that have to do with this article?

The police are getting warrants for the video.

BenFranklin1004• 2 years ago

They aren’t getting warrants to tow the vehicles. They have no right to seize private property, especially the private property of someone not even involved with the crime in question. And what if the Tesla owner, as is their right or at least should be, refuses to release the video footage? How long do the police keep the illegally seized vehicle while the owner sorts out the seizure before the courts and at what personal cost? And what is prevents the police from obtaining the video through extrajudicial means? Does Tesla itself have access to the video? Can they sell/give it to the police? Are there legal safeguards against this or is it an open market as the linked Reason article shows? All of the above applies to any aftermarket camera security system as well. Also, if the police get access to the car data by some means, can they use any of the data to file separate charges against an uncooperative owner as retribution if they desire? There are many questions along these lines when dealing with an intrusive police state.

moate5• 2 years ago

Freedom does not require Liberty because Freedom does not require the state. Liberties are granted, not natural, Freedoms. Freedom sounds great and people love to hype it, but doesn’t exist in a meaningful way in most advanced societies.

If we’re going to use proper nouns, we need to use them properly.

BenFranklin1004• 2 years ago

Go live in the remote wilderness in your cabin. The rest of this will live within civilized society with our necessary liberties, thank you very much.

netsec_burn• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/M81lw

neilv3• 2 years ago

Who gave Tesla and their drivers the right to set up video surveillance cameras in public?

snozolli3• 2 years ago

Unless they're parking in an area with a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a locker room, it's perfectly legal to record in the United States.

neilv3• 2 years ago

You can argue what exactly is and isn't a reasonable expectation of privacy, and someone else can argue differently.

For example, the upskirt "street photographers" have long argued one way, and eventually they get smacked down, legally.

pbohun• 2 years ago

We've seen this type of thing happen with Ring, where the police want video from people's private cameras. Do police have the legal right to access/take people's private property like this? I thought the 4th amendment of the constitution protected against unreasonable searches and seizures?

gruez21• 2 years ago

Do police have the legal right to access/take people's private property like this? I thought the 4th amendment of the constitution protected against unreasonable searches and seizures?

Search warrants specifically exist to give police the "legal right to access/take people's private property", and are widely accepted to be constitutional.

brvsft• 2 years ago

You pretend this is some obvious fact, but obtaining a search warrant against a person or property that were uninvolved in the crime but may have only been 'witness' to it is not obvious or clear to me.

ralferoo2• 2 years ago

This might be setting a new precedent though. I'm making assumptions here, but I'd have thought that search warrants were historically used at locations where the suspect lived / worked / frequented. Even at premises not owned by the suspect, the police turning up and requiring all the security footage doesn't deprive the premise owner of anything. Towing away an innocent law-abiding citizen's car for a matter entirely unrelated to them seems like it's massively overstepping the line set by any previous precedent.

I can't think of anything else that could be seized by the police from an entirely innocent non-suspect which would cause a similar level of disruption in their life. What happens when the car owner needs to head to work in the morning and find their car has been taken. I doubt a call to the police is going to quickly reveal that it was the police themselves who took it. Even if it does, if they're holding it for evidence, they might not get it back very quickly. What if the lack of car leads to negative consequences for the owner - maybe they miss an important work meeting, flight, date, whatever - are the police going to compensate them for that? What if the owner is out of the country for a month and they only need a week to act on the court order and get all the video - does the owner then have to pay impound fees? Is it discriminatory that the police assume all Tesla's can be seized this way even if they don't happen to be recording, but they wouldn't consider doing to same to any other make of car even though any car might have a dash-cam that records when locked.

kylehotchkiss• 2 years ago

If it’s my outdoor cameras and it pertains to a crime that happened just outside my home, they can have the footage. A very practical contribution I can make to my neighborhoods safety

jajko• 2 years ago

When they will come for evidence, they will not care whether its your external camera or baby watcher or whatever they will deem necessary.

tedajax• 2 years ago

Keep boot licking I guess

monkeywork13• 2 years ago

So if the camera is in your car you are ok with them towing it away to pull the footage if they can't get in touch with you right away leaving you without a car?

What if while looking at your footage for a crime outside your home (not related to you or your property) they see you doing something that could constitute a charge should they be able to share you for it as well?

If someone saw you out in front of your house on your phone during the time of the crime should the authorities be able to seize your phone under the assumption that you were likely recording the incident?

IIAOPSW• 2 years ago

In general, if there's a record of something which was captured in the course of ordinary business which is relevant as evidence in a court matter (such as the recording of your Ring camera), and parties to proceedings have good reason to believe you have this record, then they can generally get a subpoena issued to compel you to produce it for the court. This applies to both the prosecution and the defense (both criminal and civil).

The protection against "unreasonable" search and seizure comes in the form of the fact the requesting party has to convince the court (usually the registry) that there is reasonable grounds before they will issue a subpoena.

As an investigative matter (prior to any charges, court listings, and subpoenas), it is possible to get a search warrant including for evidence held by 3rd parties who aren't suspected of anything. Again, police don't have carte blanche. They need to convince a judicial officer of some sort that there is reasonable grounds before a warrant will be issued.

There are ways to challenge a warrant/subpoena. Sometimes a successful challenge only serves to make the evidence inadmissible but doesn't prevent the search in the first place (aka "you can beat the ticket but you can't beat the ride).

All that said, some judges / courts tend to practically be a rubber stamp for whatever warrant / subpoena the police want. Others actually do their job. It ain't perfect, but if you can think of a better system, I'd love to hear it.

raincom• 2 years ago

Third-party doctrine is a legal way around the 4A: "The third-party doctrine is a United States legal doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties—such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and e-mail servers—have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in that information. A lack of privacy protection allows the United States government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure without probable cause and a judicial search warrant."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

jauntywundrkind2• 2 years ago

To me, it's a bug not a feature that precedent can just expand infinitely as new capabilities in the world grow.

There's a lot of people saying that search warrants have always allowed intrusion & seizure. But the fact that all these devices (cars, cameras, phones) are now potentially interesting data-rich objects to be seized, mined for ever larger total information awareness by the state seems like a massive defect & flaw of the system to me.

I dont want old laws + new technology to automatically result in the state's eye of sauron (palantir) getting to better observe us.

moate5• 2 years ago

The state’s first goal is to protect the state’s continued existence. Anything that can be seen as interfering with that can be labeled an enemy and relegated to subhuman/other/destroy on contact status. From there, state violence, and from there, nazis.

jauntywundrkind2• 2 years ago

By far the most critical aspects of the state maintaining itself is to have the faith of the people, as a just and right entity that doesn't deserve to be smashed, whose blood is good for more than renewinf the tree of liberty

This ever expanding invasiveness delegitimizes the state. Physical security is a positive, only when the power itself is used respectably & virtuously. Pursuing enemies at all cost makes you a bad state, that can't be believed in. Some balance is required. Some limit to intrusion is necessary, and to me, this violates the sovereign rights of the citizens, to have so much of our lives repurposeable & cooptable by the state with ever increasing scope and haste.

nonethewiser• 2 years ago

Autonomous vehicles will not be your property.

kepler1• 2 years ago

Here in California (and generally in the US, as well as other places where the cost of enforcing laws seems to be growing too costly/unpalatable), we seem increasingly interested in documenting and retroactively following up the aftermath of crimes. Rather than preventing them when / before they're happening. I'm surprised the police even care to watch video afterwards.

(aside from the serious crime stuff like in the article)

aftbit• 2 years ago

Creepy stuff. Maybe we ought not to constantly record everything happening around us all the time.

papichulo4• 2 years ago

Seems like if it’s technically possible, it will happen, and we can’t stop technological progress. In fact, you and I are probably profiting from that progress. Hard to ask a guy to do something that goes against his paycheck. Even if we vote politically “correct,” whomever that may be, what are you and I voting for with our wallets?

Lammy• 2 years ago

Seems like if it’s technically possible, it will happen, and we can’t stop technological progress.

‘The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.’

FpUser• 2 years ago

"we can’t stop technological progress"

I do not want to stop tech progress, but I do want to stop social regress. Give it another 20-30 years and we will have same shit problems with freedoms as China, Russia, insert your fav scapegoat here.

Dibby053• 2 years ago

If we had to vote everything with our wallets Tesla wouldn't exist in the first place. We would have $5,000 trucks made by Burmese war prisoners that can reach 200mph on full self drive, running on palm oil without a catalytic converter.

loteck2• 2 years ago

The incidental and systemic benefits of the recordings are exciting to people and celebrated with stories. The hazards of this constant "pollution" of data — how it is slowly changing our society, our economy, our humanity — is harder to quantify or build opposition to.

It's a bit like climate change. Slow, invisible poison.

deepsun• 2 years ago

s/poison/vitamin/ and you'll be happier.

AtlasBarfed• 2 years ago

Law simply needs to internalize encryption. Your cameras are your property and only with consent of owner are they available to authorities.

Public cameras should only be decrypted for evidence to support litigation of crimes, not for police to search for violay, because the current gigantic book of laws has an implicit assumption of a difficulty to enforce.

If suddenly police could use AI to fully prosecute all violations of law then we have all the laws necessary for worse than totalitarian existence.

Every mile you drove in a car will be 10 violations of law. Laugh loud? Violation disturbance of peace. Stand looking at your email too long? Loitering. Cross a park? Dozens of environmental violations.

akira25017• 2 years ago

and celebrated with stories.

Are you sure those are organic?

xyst2• 2 years ago

NSA has been collecting domestic and foreign data for a long time now. There’s even a dedicated data warehouse/data center in Utah (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center)

hypercube33• 2 years ago

Early 2000s there was an unveiling of ARGUS-IS and if we have that and commercial companies know when daughters are pregnant before they tell their parents then stuff like the TV series Person of Interest seems all too plausible at least as far as mass surveillance AI exists. I doubt there is a Batman squad doing good on that level of technology out there hidden from society but there may be a military and CIA like op behind it.

There was tech to watch for what things you pick up and put back or dwell on in stores with cameras and heat maps and loyalty card tracking before 2005. it's not far off to get a person some computer thinks should be investigated based on patterns and data out there publicly.

tptacek5• 2 years ago

Why? Bodycams are an unalloyed good, and have deeper privacy implications.

throwup238• 2 years ago

With proper checks and balances in a civilian government, sure. The problem is when private companies help police departments do a runaround constitutional protections. Users have no sovereignty over their data (so to speak).

samstave• 2 years ago

Can I FOIA Yopur CarCam?

I Should be able to FOIA-LiveStream #OfficerBadge_Num

For #1 &#4 Rights? Maybe #2

#If Warrant granted, then enable FOIA-Cam_Footage = 1

jmspring• 2 years ago

This is a hardone for me. In the family we have - 2016 Tacoma, 2015 Rav4, 2016 Mini, 2019 Sprinter RV. None have driver assist, backup cameras only, etc. I've been thinking about dashcams, but only ones where I know what will be published where (IE, not the cloud), so I have a personal record for instance if the kid has an issue in the Mini.

No plans to upgrade or get new vehicles unless a dire need. For instance if Sprinter or Tacoma die, drive the not-dead one. (Sprinter is technially an RV, but used for business).

jstummbillig3• 2 years ago

Is there any tangible reason that would actually weight enough to justify not actively wanting to provide basically free resources in help of uncovering (and in effect: preventing) a violent crime?

Because, if not, this is about as "creepy" as those nerdy guys sitting in their bedrooms and basements, tinkering with their silly computers all day, meaning: Non-conformist and something you might just not be ready to think about straight.

krona• 2 years ago

Perhaps because being at the scene of a crime makes you a potential suspect, and in an age of boundless incompetence, I'd rather not take that chance.

bartonfink• 2 years ago

Police incompetence and overreach.

142• 2 years ago

yes there is a valid reason to be opposed to this. Yes everyone one wants to stop violent crimes and murders and that is not a bad thing. But as history has shown time and time again if the people in power decide to become a tyrant and start to abuse the technology then we have a problem. Imagine if this was around 60 years ago. You go into a bar. Some cars have driven past the bar right as you entered a few weeks past. Now police realize this is actually a secret gay bar. They take all cars whose gps shows they passed the bar and take their footage. You are seen on camera entering a gay bar and now you are on a list and they start to harass you and question you. Seems like an unlikely situation that is far fetched but I like to remind people it was only in 1965 that the last person was arrested in Canada for homosexuality. He was even declared a dangerous sex offender. So no we don't want cameras recording every second of our lives. Things that may be legal today might not be tomorrow so we should have privacy from constant surveillance. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/everett-klippert-lgbt-a...

mullingitover3• 2 years ago

A large group of people will look at these stories of technology being used to get the worst people off the street and say "This is creepy stuff," and a lot of that same group will listen to politicians telling them "the solution to gun violence is for everyone to have guns" and nod thoughtfully in agreement.

userbinator• 2 years ago

Guns can't be used for surveillance.

perching_aix• 2 years ago

mount a camera on them

mullingitover3• 2 years ago

A person who believes they'll be caught and face consequences for committing crimes is strongly affected by knowing there is heavy surveillance of their criminal activities. They're less likely to be deterred just knowing that a lot of other people will randomly have guns, in fact that makes them more likely to also have a gun and to shoot first (e.g.: that actor who was gunned down confronting someone who was stealing a catalytic converter).

moate5• 2 years ago

Sure? But some people also don’t care about either and others people think too much focus is on preventing effects (crime) and not on addressing cause (material conditions) and plenty of pro-fascists quote 1984 to support policy that would have made Orwell want to shoot them in the head.

People be crazy.

xyst2• 2 years ago

Surveillance tech masquerading as “self driving vehicles”. Those Waymo vehicles are prime for this.

thunder-blue-34• 2 years ago

Will they though? Crime enforcement in the bay area is a joke - from alameda county into SF. I'm so happy to have moved out and into a state with actual community engagement and accountability.

loteck2• 2 years ago

Where'd you move to?

thunder-blue-34• 2 years ago

Connecticut - I've never felt safer walking around at 3 am and I've made more friends in the last 2 months (without trying) than I probably have in the last 6 years of living in the bay area.

hereme888• 2 years ago

The stories I hear from family living in the area... basically unless you're actively being assaulted, cops just don't show up. Unheard of in "normal" parts of the country.

My brother once had his vehicle stolen, he traced it, found it, and because the police wasn't motivated to show up, he acted over the phone as if he were about to get into a life/death confrontation with the thief. Then they sent someone.

thunder-blue-34• 2 years ago

My ex's father was held up near his home with a knife - OPD never came after the initial call was filed.

reillys2• 2 years ago

If I or somebody else was the victim of a crime I would 100% support using every available source of information to solve that crime. I think we need adequate controls sure, but mostly we need to increase trust in government and police forces so we know we can trust the relevant people with our data.

There is epic fear in the US about the government. That is the actual problem. Now the US gov is a shady piece of shit, so a lot of that is well founded, but that is the root of the problem. Solve that problem and actually trust the people who are supposed to be responsible and in charge to do the right thing and this data problem stops becoming as much of an issue. And no, building some kind of philosophical zero trust system is not going to solve anything, it is a prison you'll end up living in.

Encourage transparency in Police forces and Government with strong legislation and strong support for whistleblowers and punishment of infractions and you have yourself a system that people can begin to trust.

trompetenaccoun• 2 years ago

It's not just the police. How could such a corrupt police exist without corrupt superiors higher up in the government? Fear of governments is justified, they're the most powerful entity in our world. They can get away with murder.

The US is not Iceland, a simple fix that would just make people trust the police is impossible. Also as an aside, the police isn't your only problem. Tesla, Google & co are paving the way normalizing these mobile surveillance units. We'll have millions of them driving around everywhere with HD cameras, microphones, in some cases even LiDAR and radar. Recording constantly. Of course there's a bit of an issue if you are not a fan of mass surveillance. Even if corporations are the only ones in charge of that data. I know for example that the Tesla video feed can be accessed online, because owners can remotely view it with their app. And if they can do this, so can others in theory. All you need is a bug or Tesla servers getting hacked.

reillys2• 2 years ago

Well actually that brings up an interesting piece about how the US is structured. I think the reason your police can be more corrupt is because of the federated nature of policing.

Cops are usually only answerable to the mayor of the city (and sometimes the electorate) rather than higher ups in the government. So there is a lack of authority and control there. If they were answerable to politicians and politicians were actually responsible for their actions you could take very firm political actions against those politicians - but in the states nobody in the Cabinet or Government is responsible for law enforcement.

And I understand why this federated system was originally put in place, but this isn't the 1700s. In communication terms the US might as well be Iceland - you can communicate from one end of the land mass to the other instantly, so we don't need to have localized and federated decision making.

mvc• 2 years ago

So funny to watch the US competing with China to be the most authoritarian state.

akimbostrawman2• 2 years ago

the driving panopticon is being used to spy. shocking

rd• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/zzMAr

pdar41232• 2 years ago

I have perhaps unpopular additional suggestion. If you break any traffic laws your tesla should automatically report u to the police. Shouldn’t a car w AI capabilities be committed to responsible, ethical, safe, law abiding behavior ? I’m tired of bay area Teslas not signaling, cutting me off, and near killing me while I’m walking or on my bike.

spacephysics• 2 years ago

Nah that gets to a police state mighty fast.

It works if the people in power align with your values, but the moment it doesn’t it becomes a problem

simon_acca• 2 years ago

They have this on airliners now https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_operations_quality_as...

rcpt2• 2 years ago

So we're finally getting speed cameras?

harmmonica4• 2 years ago

As a somewhat regular user of Waymo, these types of conversations seem like they're going to be more and more in the (sorry!) rearview mirror because we won't own the car nor the cameras that are recording the world as we "drive" around.

That's not to say that we should give up fighting for some level of privacy even when we don't own the cars, but seems more likely that legislation would be passed that forces the vehicle owners/operators (Alphabet in the Waymo case) to blur peoples' faces. Then of course the state (police/gov/etc.) will clamor for a backdoor key that will unlock the blurred faces/bodies if a crime is suspected to have occurred. Speaking of, I wonder if Waymo already does blur people when they capture them through Waymo rides? I can't seem to find mention of it online.

This commentary assumes self-driving cars are here to stay and become the de facto way we drive instead of driving ourselves. Still not sure how their adoption plays out over time because, at least in the US, people will fight against mandates to use self-driving cars because it compromises their freedom (note that the freedom crowd (no judgment) will be saying that, at first, because they will consider it their right to drive themselves, but once the privacy implications are clear there will be full-on (figurative?) wars fought over self-driving). Guessing a politician, in Texas or another red state, will sooner than later enshrine the right-to-drive-oneself into the state constitution.

threecheese• 2 years ago

I am hoping for an urban camouflage fashion revolution as a response to more pervasive monitoring: https://www.axios.com/2019/09/07/fooling-facial-recognition-...

Public access to object recognition models may be important.

chefandy• 2 years ago

I'd like to see that too, but time and time again we've seen that:

a) laypeople aren't usually moved by privacy violations more abstract than someone physically watching you do something.

b) most people aren't willing to don practical accessories that noticably change the perception of your face unless it emphasizes qualities considered sexy.

c) safety gear generally isn't considered sexy

I think that this stuff would be perceived like wearing a physical bike helmet for your data privacy with all the cachet of Google Glass.

zeven7• 2 years ago

Surely object recognition models will catch up to whatever attempts to thwart it (especially if it becomes popular). As long as a person is recognizable to another person, a computer should also be able to recognize them.

Trying to camouflage seems like a losing battle.

1997cui• 2 years ago

Just FYI, it is illegal to mask your face in New York https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna168590

kelnos14• 2 years ago

I think it's safe to assume that 0.0000001% of the population will bother with that.

singularity2001• 2 years ago

Muslim women know. how is this controlling Gilde called in Dune again?

chris-orgmenta• 2 years ago

Does gait recognition (and body tics / unique movement style) not make this moot?

My sense is that facial recognition is a stop-gap and soon to be superseded, because the tech is there for more holistic 'reads' of a person - And that those subtle things that we humans can't see are actually plain as day and as clear as a fingerprint.

If we cover our face, then the data collected on gait etc. will be more than enough. If we adopt a different gait, then the data on other foibles and styles will then give us away. Etc. (we can't hope to disguise all of these at once)

fasa992• 2 years ago

surely there are simpler ways of course if you've dealt with most hoodish ruffians, as the names tells us, the people of the hood love to wear hoodies - which generally work quite well to hide from cameras, especially those above, if the hood sags forward and over the face somewhat or these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_glasses

or outside or alongside hoodies, these can be seen as socially acceptable (mostly) ; https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/07/mask-of-your-own-fa...

akira25017• 2 years ago

these types of conversations seem like they're going to be more and more in the (sorry!) rearview mirror because we won't own the car nor the cameras that are recording the world as we "drive" around.

Perhaps in the urban setting but the majority of this country is not contained within cities. Even then are you planning on banning motorcycles and RVs?

because they will consider it their right to drive themselves

Until a law is passed otherwise they are absolutely correct.

the right-to-drive-oneself into the state constitution.

I doubt it. The real fight is likely to be whether we continue using mixed vehicle and pedestrian infrastructure or if we force pedestrians off the roadway entirely. Then we'll have a "right to walk" constitutional crisis.

PeterisP• 2 years ago

Perhaps in the urban setting but the majority of this country is not contained within cities.

83% of USA population live in urban areas, and that proportion is still steadily growing. The same trends apply everywhere else in the world as well.

harmmonica4• 2 years ago

I don't think you mean "you" as in me specifically, but in case that is what you meant I'm of course not banning anything and I'm not even advocating for that. I was predicting what I think will happen with self-driving cars and the privacy implications if that does to come to pass (still a big if).

As for urban vs. rural, I feel like rural will benefit just as much from self-driving as urban. I won't detail why, but it's pretty much the same reasons as urban. Economics will have to be better if it's going to be corporate-controlled cars, but, really, if Elon's right (huge if) and you can successfully have autonomy with a Model 3-level of hardware, then rural America may very well have widespread autonomous car access in the next couple of years.

Motorcyles? Great point. Not sure how that will shake out. RV's? Seems like a fantastic opportunity for autonomy. Sit in the captain's seat, beer in hand, actually watch the scenery as you drive on by. In fact I think the market for RV's will grow if folks don't have to drive them themselves because there are likely many people who wouldn't be comfortable driving an RV due to its size, but if it drives itself it could open up a whole new audience.

As for pedestrians, do you think pedestrians are being restricted more and more as the years go on? I see the opposite in both urban and rural areas in the US. Genuinely curious how your experience is different and where. I tend to think autonomous cars will make walking more pleasant. No more worrying about a car clipping you making a right turn, or a car driving unnecessarily fast and losing control, or a drunk driver losing control. All of those things may go away with autonomy (I say "may" because we're millions if not billions of miles away from anyone saying definitively that self-driving is safer/better/etc. In my limited experience riding in Waymos, though, I am incredibly optimistic about the technology. And I really look forward to us figuring out the privacy implications and other negatives that could come along with it because I think the benefits are so enormous that it'll be a massive shame if the tech does not work out long term).

rblatz5• 2 years ago

I think this plays out where it becomes a luxury to drive oneself. Over the next 10-15 years it looks like self driving will continue to advance and will likely become safer than the alternative.

Once that happens insurance companies will start charging more for people that drive themselves compared to people that let the car drive.

I can see some states outlawing that practice. Then it’s left to see who is still underwriting insurance in those states.

bamboozled2• 2 years ago

Won't happen unless tradesmen, engineers, etc can use self-driving cars, which will e awkward when you need to park up onto a curb or something to inspect a downed power line.

throwaway22032• 2 years ago

I agree with you that driving manually will become a luxury but it's important to recognise that it will manifest as a discount on self driving, not a surcharge on manual.

The only way in which I can see a surcharge on manual happening is if it becomes so incredibly rare that it becomes a niche product, or if there ends up being a bias e.g. it turns out that the pool of manual drivers is now biased towards people who like to drive in a risky manner.

If anything, in a competitive market that is able to price individual risk appropriately, the cost of manual insurance for you or I should be lower in the self driving world, because most other drivers are now "superhuman" and thus we should get into fewer accidents.

vineyardmike7• 2 years ago

I think this plays out where it becomes a luxury to drive oneself. Over the next 10-15 years it looks like self driving will continue to advance and will likely become safer than the alternative.

I think this is a long way away and will vary geographically.

For a long time, self driving cars will be more expensive because they’ll have expensive sensors on it. Not many people will want a $100K self driving car instead of a $30k Camry. This means the cost-per-mile goes up unless utilization rate goes up. The most effective way to do that is make it a Taxi.

The natural result of self-driving-taxis is that the people least likely to take a taxi but most dependent on a car (rural Americans) will drive themselves still and those cars will be cheaper because they’re sensor free. That will never be a luxury product.

In urban environments though, the poorest people will continue to own cars but be slowly priced out by insurance. But maybe insurance won’t go up for manual cars, but down for self driving cars. They’ve already priced the cost of manual driving, which won’t get more dangerous as less cars are human. States might try to protect them, but I think politicians and citizens will be persuaded by “safety” over “poor people need to afford transportation”.

hansvm3• 2 years ago

freedom crowd might fight it

Look at the 2020 covid vaccines. The freedom crowd said this was going to have massive privacy implications, there was a propaganda machine pushing those people as being crazy antivaxers (maybe many were, let's talk about the large subset who just had privacy concerns), and the net result is that most US citizens have their names, addresses, preferred vaccination locations, preferred vaccination times, propensity for following local regulations, ..., recorded in a database so broken it's basically public.

The freedom crowd didn't have a lot of power against a propaganda machine turning their neighbors against them. Tack in a few dozens of billions from Tesla or Google claiming their cars are safer than the average driver (in well-studied, dry, daylight, slow streets) and using that to push anyone unwilling to roll that tech out globally as a road-raged Luddite, and I'm not sure the freedom crowd are going to be able to do much to slow down our corporate overlords.

harmmonica4• 2 years ago

I'm not going to respond to your Covid commentary in an effort to avoid going down a rabbit hole, but I should say that when I wrote "freedom crowd" it's not some monolith. Specifically, I think there are plenty of freedom-minded folks across the political spectrum, and I do believe that those folks, again, across the spectrum, are going to have a hard time accepting self-driving cars en masse because of the privacy implications. I do think it will weigh more to the conservative side of the fence, but if you haven't hung around with extremely progressive people there is a huge contingent on that side that is very wary of government mandates and, I feel dumb even writing something this obvious, far more wary of corporate America's agenda than any other population in the country. Maybe you were talking about the left in the first place, but I think you were referring to the right based on bringing up Covid and the other language you used.

conradev• 2 years ago

Can’t I just buy a car that lets me drive it but also can drive itself?

I can already today add functionality to cars with after-market hardware: https://comma.ai/?

throwaway20379• 2 years ago

What is the legality of comma.ai kit? I find it hard to believe that states would want to allow it. It is surely much worse than Waymo.

hn_throwaway_993• 2 years ago

This commentary assumes self-driving cars are here to stay and become the de facto way we drive instead of driving ourselves.

This seems like an extremely myopic "tech bubble" take to me. I'm trying to find a way to put this so that it doesn't sound like an attack, but have you been to suburban or rural areas outside of places like SF, NYC or Phoenix? Being reliant on third party transportation, on roads the are often in disrepair with poor signage, is a nonstarter for probably most of the US population.

hiddencost2• 2 years ago

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-ru...

urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population

grecy4• 2 years ago

is a nonstarter for probably most of the US population.

I disagree.

I grew up in Rural Australia, lived in the Yukon and have driven to many of the world's most remote and undeveloped countries.

You are saying "Self driving cars will NEVER work in <this specific case>"

When what you mean to say is "Self driving cars will first work in the easy cases, and then years later will work in more and more cases until they eventually work everywhere."

FWIW, people said exactly the same thing when the automobile came around and horses were the best transport. Of course automobiles didn't work well in places with no gas stations or very nasty horse tracks for many years. But the years will always roll on, and things will change.

gcanyon2• 2 years ago

most of the US population

You do realize that "most" of the US population lives in cities, right? The "rural" population has remained almost constant since the 1960s, while the "urban" population has grown to roughly 5x the rural population's size. Even just counting the largest 100 cities is more than the rural population. Setting that aside for a moment, how does poor signage affect self-driving cars? They're not like humans expecting to take the third left but miscounting, or turning right at the Dairy Queen (which has shut down). They have GPS and full maps. Those maps might not be perfect, but they'll only ever be wrong once if they're part of a system, which is what's being proposed here.

To be clear, I'm matching your tone here. Normally I'd try to be a little more understanding and tempered.

ghaff3• 2 years ago

Most of the US population is urban per the census bureau but a lot of that is spread out suburbs and exurbs. I’m “urban” between many acres of orchards and conservation land. Depending on third party transportation day to day would be utterly impractical.

seanmcdirmid4• 2 years ago

This is fun because until the last couple of decades, private transportation wasn’t very common in China at all, people simply didn’t own their own cars and taxis were (and still are) ubiquitous even in small rural towns (though they might be breadbox vans to supplement shared minibuses). Almost everyone was relying in third party transportation and even today most still are.

And really, this kind of thing was common in most countries and turned out America (along with Canada, Australia) are the odd ones out with almost ubiquitous private car ownership in most of its area.

I have no idea how self driving taxis will change the USA, but I rode in my first Waymo last week on a trip to SF and it felt very real. Having lived in a country where I took a taxi to work everyday, I can totally see that life working for me (since I already lived it anyways).

harmmonica4• 2 years ago

No attack taken. Fair question. I'm in a bubble at the moment because I'm located in one of the few areas where Waymo is available (think that qualifies as a (tech) bubble any way you look at it). But I feel like experiencing this tech answers a lot of questions about what is and isn't possible (or better yet what is and what will be possible with self-driving cars).

Also, I work in a very rural environment that couldn't be more hostile to self-driving cars, at least as I thought about them before riding in Waymos (an example: where I stay when I work there I have to give people turn by turn directions because if you rely on Google or Apple Maps your car will get stuck on a road with foot-deep ruts where you'll need to be pulled out; I mean it's not driving on those crazy roads in Pakistan you see videos about (never been) but I would be willing to bet those roads, which I transit regularly, are amongst the poorer-quality roads in the US and I can see self-driving tech working there before long).

And I have spent a few evenings trying to understand how the corporate-owned-fleet economics work in rural areas (and in urban). I don't think it works today. But I do think that when costs come down, and they will come down if regulation doesn't kill self-driving cars broadly, or if Elon's right and you can do it with "cameras only," then it will only be a matter of time before the tech is adapted to crappy rural roads.

n0bodyproblm• 2 years ago

Love of driving may be a generational thing as cars were new and cool for them.

Like religion having a license is on the decline:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/05/17/gen-z-les...

Generational social trends are not immutable physics.

forinti• 2 years ago

Not so bad if my car can drop me off at work and, go to court, and then pick me up at the end of the day to go home.

tiziano88• 2 years ago

"You have ad-blocker turned on" despite that being completely untrue.

btilly• 2 years ago

I'm sorry, but what happened to the 4th Amendment? Your car was parked in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even though you followed all rules, we're taking it.

Not without a judge.

hk-hater420• 2 years ago

My car ain’t no snitch

savrajsingh• 2 years ago

Free feature idea: - Tesla needs a public facing website that allows anyone to request a video for a cost — any location at any point in time - vehicle owners can review video footage and approve request - vehicle owner gets a cut, Tesla gets a cut, authority or person in fender bender or whatever gets video

nothercastle2• 2 years ago

There are already plenty of cameras out there. It would not be very difficult to identify criminals. The problem is there is not sufficient motivation to do so and nobody knows what to do once the criminals are identified. My city just practices catch and release policing so laws only apply to those that will pay fines

Ylpertnodi• 2 years ago

so laws only apply to those that will pay fines.

So, penalising the poors who are not as poor as the other poors.

nothercastle2• 2 years ago

The rich pay the fines too, it’s just that it’s not a meaningful deterrence. The poorest simply drive without plates or licenses so they are immune

personjerry• 2 years ago

Kinda sounds like we're heading for the authoritarian surveillance state that China has spearheaded, only with more steps

reissbaker• 2 years ago

LMFAO. My Tesla has been broken into multiple times in the Bay Area, with footage of the perpetrators and their license plate numbers, and the police have refused to investigate and were often unwilling to even accept the footage. And this isn't just me: literally everyone I know with a Tesla in the Bay Area has had a similar experience. The cops do not care, at all.

Towing someone's car on the off chance it had video surveillance of a crime the police bother working on is insane overreach when they won't even investigate crimes to that owner's car in the first place.

hiddencost2• 2 years ago

Refactor the police into micro services.

jimt1234• 2 years ago

I was once pitched a business where external-facing cameras would be provided to car owners, distributed through auto insurance companies. The business intended to make money from selling the video data to law enforcement. I'm skipping a lot of details, but one of the main objections is that the police wouldn't pay for the data, they would just take it.

x3haloed• 2 years ago

I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced by a murder… Or is that the country we’re living in now? “Murder happens, just don’t bother me.”

caseyy• 2 years ago

Did your house witness a crime?

We already have cameras on many of our homes, so it should be roughly the same process.

Towing sounds ridiculous. No one should be penalized for a crime someone else did. But taking away one’s car is a major penalty.

diebeforei485• 2 years ago

Hotels should maybe have cameras on their parking lots.

worik• 2 years ago

The video should not be stored.

Have a 24 hour wiping cycle

paweladamczuk• 2 years ago

I wonder why the title of this HN posting was edited to only include the first sentence of the headline.

MichaelRo• 2 years ago

We got a new expression it seems. Used to have "drive-by shooting", now we're gonna have "drive-by witnessing" :)

squarefoot• 2 years ago

Phew... good thing that the eye recording implant hasn't been invented yet, or some of us would have their personal life turned into an evidence log.

bloomingeek• 2 years ago

I don't own a Tesla, and frankly, don't want to own anything associated with Musk. However, I do have dash cams in both my vehicles that will start recording when the car is not running.

If I was driving in my car near a crime scene and discovered my dash cam recorded something that could be used as evidence, personally, I would call the local police and ask them if they were interested. However, to have the police discover my vehicle was in close proximity to the crime, and me not realizing my dash cam had recorded anything of value, and then the police try to impound my vehicle in a parking lot without my knowledge is outrageous!

The above situation is the result of two major realities: once again technology has emerged without adequate laws to deal with the consequences.(I realize this is usually the norm, law makers MUST speed up the process to protect citizens.) Second, police reform has to bring local law enforcement up to date with current reality. (The seizing of a vehicle based on possible crime info isn't protecting citizens, it's theft. Contacting the vehicle owner and requesting the info is serving the citizens, if they're not willing there is a court system.)

aswanson• 2 years ago

There was a recent murder caught in HD by a Tesla in a hotel parking lot. The quality is unreal: https://youtu.be/ij85PgNjqAI?si=lGlJBOWdgLDSKSj7

p0w3n3d• 2 years ago

Sounds ridiculous. What happens if you have a home camera? Do they take your home? Really?

JohnFen11• 2 years ago

The police usually asks for the owner’s permission to access their Tesla’s Sentry Mode backup USB drive which is located in the glove box, and download the desired content. However, if the owners can’t be located, officers obtain search warrants and tow the EVs into evidence.

Why don't the cops get a search warrant for that USB drive and take that rather than confiscating the entire vehicle of innocent people?

izacus3• 2 years ago

What's so innocent about people running surveillance cameras and recording every person walking by on the street?

urda• 2 years ago

You have no expectation of privacy in public. Your right to seclusion or privacy does not extend to public spaces.

JohnFen11• 2 years ago

I'm talking about being innocent of the crime under investigation, not the larger societal issue.

I agree with you that this ubiquitous surveillance is detestable, but that's a whole different discussion.

randallsquared2• 2 years ago

Basically: “What’s so innocent about having your eyes open?”

If you are somewhere where you might expect that people could see you, don’t pretend that they are supposed to not see you, or to forget what they saw. Thinking ypeopleshould have that kind of control over other people’s memories, even if stored in their stuff, seems dystopian.

frogblast4• 2 years ago

Without first hand knowledge, I'll take a guess: if the owner of the vehicle isn't available or cooperating, then getting access to the USB drive requires opening up the vehicle without a key, which could require some time or specialized tools, or cooperation from the manufacturer.

But in general, this isn't really much new. If you have home cameras, and police can obtain a search warrant, then you can be compelled to provide the video, or they can seize any device (such as entire computer, your server closet, etc) that could reasonably contain the video.

JohnFen11• 2 years ago

or cooperation from the manufacturer.

I would have thought this was the path of least resistance (as well as doing less harm to the car owner) since they're getting a search warrant anyway.

uoaei• 2 years ago

opening up the vehicle without a key, which could require some time or specialized tools, or cooperation from the manufacturer

That would require a search warrant, something the comment you're replying to already mentioned. Search warrants typically specify the means of access.

bastawhiz2• 2 years ago

police can obtain a search warrant, then you can be compelled to provide the video, or they can seize any device (such as entire computer, your server closet, etc) that could reasonably contain the video.

Yes but the police can't start occupying my house or deny me access to it because I wasn't home to let them in.

neaden2• 2 years ago

This seems pretty messed up on a couple levels. Yet another way we're all being surveiled with the addition of getting your property randomly confiscated.

immibis• 2 years ago

Sounds like your property won't be confiscated if you don't try to surveil everyone. Swings and roundabouts.

adamsb6• 2 years ago

Having cameras on your house isn't an invitation for the police to come in and take the footage.

JohnFen11• 2 years ago

It's a great argument for not buying a Tesla, that's for sure.

al_borland2• 2 years ago

It’s a great argument for avoiding any purchase that involves always-on cameras.

piptastic• 2 years ago

not sure i buy this is a trend yet, the article talks about 3 cases:

1 - vehicle wasn't involved and was about to be towed for footage as the article implies (owner came by and gave them footage during tow process)

2 - tesla was towed along with 2 other vehicles from a shootout in the parking lot (probably the cars were shot or had other evidence on them)

3 - the crime happened inside the tesla (was going to be towed regardless)

Suppafly2• 2 years ago

1 - vehicle wasn't involved and was about to be towed for footage as the article implies

Which is definitely something that shouldn't happen and is a violation of constitutional rights.

protimewaster• 2 years ago

I agree that it shouldn't happen, and it feels like it should be unconstitutional. I'm wondering if it actually is unconstitutional, though. If they got a warrant to seize the vehicle, for example, it seems like it's probably constitutional. I think?

marricks• 2 years ago

If this happens enough/gets enough coverage you’ll have Tesla owners themselves asking to have their rights violated automatically without the need for towing!

scohesc• 2 years ago

I wonder if you're fairly compensated by the police department for your time without your vehicle, just because you told the police you don't want to give them access to your Tesla.

Plus the time to go down to the station to pick your car up, because you know they're not going to courier it back to you.

Plus any accidental damage done to the vehicle because an officer/towing company/whoever damages your vehicle during the tow/seizure of your property.

I doubt it.

Tesla should respond by making it harder/impossible for law enforcement to retrieve the data off the drive - maybe encryption at rest only unlockable with your tesla keyfob or phone connection, etc. etc.

al_borland2• 2 years ago

What would you deem fair compensation? If I come home to find my car was stolen by the police, and I had plans, the compensation for that isn’t so straight forward.

What if someone misses work and is fired? They had to leave for a trip and missed their flight? Missed a wedding? We’re a surgeon and the delay getting to the hospital led to a death? Had to pick up kids, and had no way to get them? Medication they need was in the car and without it they get extremely ill or die?

If the owner actually committed the crime, I wouldn’t have much sympathy. However, when the driver’s only crime is owning a car with camera and parking it somewhere, that’s not good.

HeyLaughingBoy• 2 years ago

Considering that people whose doors are broken down during a no-knock search that turns out to be the wrong address have to fix the damage out of their own pocket, I doubt it.

FireBeyond2• 2 years ago

I wonder if you're fairly compensated by the police department for your time without your vehicle, just because you told the police you don't want to give them access to your Tesla.

Hah. No. Police have kicked in the wrong door (wrong house, number didn't match the warrant, wasn't the correct house), set off flash bangs, shot dogs, destroyed property...

... and when the owner (who was uninvolved in whatever the warrant was about, and it wasn't even meant to be his house searched) has requested reparations or repair work from the Police Department, they've laughed...

... and when the owner has subsequently sued the Police Department, the courts have ruled that they have no obligation to pay for any damage done, including by negligence.

jamesy0ung• 2 years ago

Hopefully Tesla implements encryption for the drive used, just to make it harder for the police department. This is stupid and it punishes the owner for happening to accidentally park their vehicle near a suspected crime.

frumper• 2 years ago

That sounds like it would just slow the process of returning the vehicle.

kazinator• 2 years ago

A man was found on the back seat of his girlfriend’s Tesla, with a gunshot wound to the head, ending up in critical condition in the hospital. The police towed the vehicle for evidence, although no arrests have been made.

This anecdote does squat all for main point in the clickbait article. It is not even remotely an example of an uninvolved Tesla being towed just for its incidental surveillance data.

The [Canadian tourist] permitted officers to download the footage without taking away the car, sparing him a visit to the police station.

Not an example of an uninvolved car being towed for data.

The police obtained a search warrant to tow three vehicles – including a Tesla Model X – and gathered CCTV footage from a nearby market. The evidence led to two arrests for murder and other felonies – although it’s not clear if any of it came from the Tesla.

Ditto.

Not a single example of a confirmed tow of a Tesla for its data.

kdamica• 2 years ago

Definitely bad for the individual but if this is reserved for homicides, which are fairly rare, and helps solve the crimes, I’d say this is overall a good thing. There’s the potential for a slippery slope here but nothing about this seems alarming to me.

Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

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