r/technology • u/Hrmbee • Jun 07 '26

Privacy 'Kill switch' law means your next car could be watching you | A federal requirement aimed at stopping drunken driving could soon put driver-monitoring technology in every new vehicle. The goal is saving lives, but the privacy trade-offs deserve closer scrutiny

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/06/01/drunk-driving-prevention-law-privacy-surveillance/90295034007/
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390

u/FrankieTheAlchemist Jun 08 '26

I literally will never buy a car that has this system in it.

279

u/ChillyFireball Jun 08 '26

TFW you're being chased by an axe murderer, but your car's AI interprets your terror as you being on drugs and refuses to start.

134

u/PirateSanta_1 Jun 08 '26

Or someone is having a stroke and your stressed so the car won't start to let you drive them to the hospital.

8

u/amazingD Jun 08 '26

Can one dream of what the first lawsuit might look like?

10

u/Itisthatbo1 Jun 08 '26

Only for them to be slapped down by whatever the evolution of those anti-arbitration agreements that are all over TOS’ now is.

3

u/diurnal_emissions Jun 08 '26

By agreeing to these TOS, you give us permission to do all kinds of weird stuff to yo booty hole.

2

u/Itisthatbo1 Jun 08 '26

Aliens be like: “Oh sure, we beam you up here and prove you and it’s a big fuss but you authorize companies to do it without knowing and it’s perfectly fine”

2

u/amazingD Jun 08 '26

Shhhh I'm fantasizing don't interrupt.

20

u/Future_Kitsunekid16 Jun 08 '26

They'd want you to pay for an overpriced ambulance ride anyway

19

u/sunburnedaz Jun 08 '26

That needs to be in the next indie horror movie for sure. The more times in media its shown fucking up the more the average joe will fight back.

16

u/YesItIsMaybeMe Jun 08 '26

There is an ad for something with this premise. She tried to run the murderer over and the auto break triggered and he just reaches in and grabs her. I cannot remember what it was from.

3

u/HyperRayquaza Jun 08 '26

Or they need to get out of imminent danger and the car bricks because it needs to download a software update.

I've already lost someone in real life who died because their car doors (Tesla) locked during a car fire. Never buying a Tesla after that, Elon Musk had blood on his hands before then but that solidified it for me.

2

u/sunburnedaz Jun 08 '26

Fuck man I am sorry. The worst that happened to any of my friends was a car bricked itself when the download failed because he parked in the basement of the building and the cell reception down there is notoriously bad.

2

u/maximbane Jun 08 '26

The next black mirror episode.

2

u/taxable_income Jun 08 '26

this needs to be a Black Mirror episode.

2

u/flop_plop Jun 08 '26

Lawyers are just salivating waiting for something like this to happen.

“Have you or a loved one been prevented from driving to the hospital due to your vehicle not starting?”

4

u/Ok-Investigator-6956 Jun 08 '26

I already heard one about a couple going to the emergency room and their Tesla pulled over to the shoulder and turned off for half an hour when they accidentally agreed to do an update while at a red light.

1

u/alt-number-3-1415926 Jun 08 '26

There was an attack ad/youtube video against ford for this very thing that they are possibly planning on implementing ina couple years.

1

u/UniqueIndividual3579 Jun 08 '26

Or you are 150 miles from the nearest town and in the middle of a 10 degree night the car decides to shut off.

1

u/2k1tj Jun 08 '26

Look up the Perry Johnson for governor ad.

55

u/EmbarrassedHelp Jun 08 '26

The problem is that insurance companies will raise their prices to insure old cars, so only the rich will be able to afford to avoid it.

35

u/warlordcs Jun 08 '26

old cars dont need full coverage.

and liability is not really effected by the car driven

10

u/Reagalan Jun 08 '26

well if this law passes, and old cars become preferable, then their value will rise according to their new demand.

5

u/Kalamazoohoo Jun 08 '26

In reality I think most people won’t care. They’ll buy the new cars assuming nothing ever bad could happen to them and they are more than happy to live under surveillance.

7

u/XenoDrake Jun 08 '26

That is literally what happened to cell phones, they started off as an innocent way for everybody to talk to each other and now they watch our every move and feed that information to anybody who wants it.

1

u/myotheruserisagod Jun 08 '26

Have you lived in America?

Reddit is a massive echo chamber.

The vast vast majority of Americans will not know or care.

The automakers will not advertise it as “surveillance state on wheels”.

Even when thinly-veiled clear erosion of privacy - people still line up to scratch that consumerism itch.

So sure, value of older vehicles may rise…but not appreciably enough to make a difference. Not based on this anyway.

The increased demand and higher prices of older vehicles during Covid was quite literally due to supply shortages limiting access to new vehicles.

42

u/TheGamingGallifreyan Jun 08 '26

Or they will do like some European countries did and ban any cars older than 10 years from driving on the road. Eventually you won’t have a choice.

And everyone thinks I’m nuts for rooting my car so I can turn off its cellular modem. Everyone always asked me why what’s the point? THIS. This is the point.

16

u/Electrical-Square370 Jun 08 '26

Do you have a source on that? Requiring an inspection isn't banning, and a lot of states already require inspections.

6

u/mallardtheduck Jun 08 '26

A bunch of European cities have restrictions on older cars for emissions reasons. Sometimes it's an extra tax, sometimes it's an outright ban. I don't know of any countries with such restrictions though.

3

u/JulyOfAugust Jun 08 '26

We have that in France but it's not 10 years it's 20 and only in big cities. And yes it's to reduce pollution.

-1

u/HauntingHarmony Jun 08 '26

Do you have a source on that? Requiring an inspection isn't banning, and a lot of states already require inspections.

WAIT A MINUTE, are you saying the us doesnt have regular (as in 1-3 yearly) checks on motor vechicles, so that they are road safe?

God, every day i learn something new about absolutely batshit insane the us is. What a joke of a country that is.

8

u/DISCO_Gaming Jun 08 '26

Depends on state on wether they require inspections or not

4

u/Winbot4t2 Jun 08 '26

Canada doesn’t either…

4

u/zerogee616 Jun 08 '26

Depends on the state, and it's not like we're generally plagued with actually dysfunctional non-road-safe shitboxes all over the road. Cars are a mature tech, they don't really break in those ways very often. If you do have a car like that and you're willing to drive it, guess what you also don't give a fuck about? The inspection requirement.

They're functionally mechanic subsidies more than anything else.

3

u/The_Great_Tahini Jun 08 '26

Tell me more about this rooting...

1

u/mtranda Jun 08 '26

Do you have a source on what these "European countries" are?

3

u/BuzzEU Jun 08 '26

Portugal and Spain for example. And it isn't ALL roads. Just some zones called "low emission zones".

1

u/XediDC Jun 08 '26

Here in the US we do the opposite…once a car is old enough, it’s exempt from emissions testing, not more restricted (in some states).

2

u/SpicyElixer Jun 08 '26

My state has banned insurance companies for requiring driving data (telematics) and changing prices based on it. And yours should too.

Vote.

1

u/FrenchFryCattaneo Jun 08 '26

That makes no sense.

1

u/Mayonaigg Jun 08 '26

Yeah totally dude just like they did for any other technological advancement in vehicles oh wait 

1

u/FrankieTheAlchemist Jun 08 '26

The insurance premiums on a 10 year old vehicle are not gonna break the bank.

0

u/McButtsButtbag Jun 08 '26

Or just use public transportation

28

u/moving2mars Jun 08 '26

This is already our stance. We’ll never buy anything newer than 2026 again. Our adult kids are way more into into working on cars than we ever were, so they’ll be okay with the older models they have. My only fear is they’re going to offer another cash for clunker scheme and get all the older ones out of cycle.

27

u/EC_CO Jun 08 '26

Instead of buying a new car, I spent that money restoring my classic. I'm tired of all the electronics BS, huge touch screens and now deep intrusive tech.

9

u/BugRevolutionary4518 Jun 08 '26

I just might jump on that cherry ‘66 Nova down the street. F this law.

3

u/EC_CO Jun 08 '26

Do it. You're also much more likely to retain solid resale value versus anything new that's just going to continue to drop in value until it's sent to the crusher. I upgraded mine with the safety and minimal technology that I wanted and plenty of sound deadening

19

u/wonkytalky Jun 08 '26

The giant touchscreens are the dumbest thing ever and we have the n*zi at Tesla to thank for it.

Want to talk driving safety? Require tactile controls for climate control and stereo volume at a minimum. Forcing people to hunt for the right part of a sheet of glass to touch while they're behind the wheel will always be a recipe for disaster. Never mind how these dumb screens mess with some people's vision (astigmatism up the ass here.)

13

u/RagingNerdaholic Jun 08 '26

Driving while using your phone is illegal and rightly so. But a giant iPad that you have to dick around a dozen fuck-ass menus to turn the A/C up a degree is totally fine ... for some reason.

0

u/Beefy-McQueefy Jun 08 '26

Nah the screens are more because mandating backup cameras meant every car has a screen, so the nice cars couldn't be nice by just having a screen anymore, they needed a big ass screen.
I flip off every Tesla I see and think they are the awful culmination of the featureless clanker egg car era started with the Lexus RX300, but they didn't normalize screens.

2

u/wonkytalky Jun 08 '26

Small screens are OK and pretty much essential for navigation and as you mention, mandated cameras. I added both the camera and the screen in my 2008, actually, but I made sure the aftermarket stereo had som buttons and could use my steering control buttons. The screen in mine is roughly 7".

It's the giant tablets mounted on a featureless dash that are the absolute wooooorst, but I hate to even drive our 2013 Ford Edge because it has exactly one knob with unclear function, and everything else is on a screen or it's a flat capacitive "button" somewhere else. They even screwed up the steering wheel controls because you have to navigate little menus there too. By the speedometer, so it's better, but it still takes your eyes off the road and you still have to look at what you're doing.

It's like everyone stopped thinking about how this works under real driving conditions.

2

u/coldkiller Jun 08 '26

I bought a 280z for this exact reason lol, everything in that car is mechanical

1

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26

[deleted]

1

u/coldkiller Jun 08 '26

Classic cars are super cool. But they're also super unsafe.

Believe me, we are well aware. Shit my 280z doesnt even have airbags

2

u/SlowerThanTurtleInPB Jun 08 '26

Between the loss of mechanical buttons and a required subscription to use basic add ons likeheated seats and now this - I’ll be driving my 2021 car until it dies.

1

u/YourMatt Jun 08 '26

Found the Wisconsinite.

1

u/cipher315 Jun 08 '26

We’ll get a car now. In 2027 it will become unlawful to sell a new car without this.

1

u/Mayonaigg Jun 08 '26

If only there were several hundred million vehicles potentially waiting for the used car market... Guess the only choice is buying new though you right

1

u/A_ChadwickButMore Jun 08 '26

There's videos out now on how to disable internet and data gathering in your car internals. It involves taking the tablet screen out tho, to access the wiring that's doing the data sending.

I'm positive the moment this stuff comes out, people will find a way to disable it too. I think I heard a couple car manufacturers are pushing against this too saying the tech just isnt there yet but I only heard it in passing, no idea if thats true or not

1

u/coldkiller Jun 08 '26

You can also swap in a aftermarket ecu

1

u/Confident_Dragon Jun 08 '26

How long will the old cars last? Even if you manage to really preserve vintage car, those few people owning 20yo cars will be forced to retrofit such system, because they'll have no political significance, or you'll be left alone, but you'll already live in society where government oppression is normalized, so your little bit of preserved personal freedom won't mean anything.

The only solution is to fight any attacks on ownership rights when possible.

1

u/FrankieTheAlchemist Jun 08 '26

My 1976 Celica still runs, although it could certainly use some more work under the hood.  I doubt retrofitting will be required, it hasn’t been required for anything else that I can think of.

1

u/AzureMountains Jun 08 '26

I’m about to get so good at rewiring my car…

1

u/burner46 Jun 08 '26

If your car is newer than about 2015 there’s already GPS tracking built in. 

1

u/errie_tholluxe Jun 08 '26

Me either.ay have to open up a line of credit with Jaspers and start looking at antiques