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from the smile-you-are-on-Candid-Camera dept.
Why install them if they don't plan to use them ? Doesn't pass the smell test.
Fusion site passes on the news that Hertz is putting cameras inside its rental cars as part of its "NeverLost" navigational system:
Hertz has offered the NeverLost navigational device for years, but it only added the built-in camera feature (which includes audio and video) to its latest version of the device -- NeverLost 6 -- in mid-2014. "Approximately a quarter of our vehicles across the country have a NeverLost unit and slightly more than half of those vehicles have the NeverLost 6 model installed,” Hertz spokesperson Evelin Imperatrice said by email. In other words, one in 8 Hertz cars has a camera inside -- but Imperatrice says that, for now, they are inactive. "We do not have adequate bandwidth capabilities to the car to support streaming video at this time," she said.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday March 18 2015, @06:29AM
Since the NSA officials bullshit talks I learned there people play the wording games. They say 'we won't turn on the cams' but they can turn on only the mics, they didn't say that.
Don't trust people that don't trust you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2015, @06:52AM
> They say 'we won't turn on the cams' but they can turn on only the mics, they didn't say that.
I hate to say it. But that was exactly what I thought too.
As in they would turn on the mics and pipe all conversation to a data-mining service that would also be primed with your personally identifiable information gleaned from the rental application. It might even get so far out of hand that they would sell access to people's conversations, so google could pay hertz to listen in on facebook employees in one of these vehicles. All of which you agreed to in the fine print on the 20 pages of the rental agreement.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2015, @09:21AM
If the cameras are already on by default no one has to turn them on. Sound and pictures.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 18 2015, @01:09PM
It does make me think that most of the people who use rental cars are MBA/business travellers and government officials running around, getting up to no good, so if we the techs of the world can get copies of the feeds we can do a lot to bring their peccadillos and misdeeds to light. Think of what we could do with footage of the politician who pretends to be a loving family man in front of the TV cameras cussing a blue streak in traffic. Or the holy roller evangelical preacher getting a BJ from a woman who is not his wife.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday March 18 2015, @09:56PM
It will only make us, "the techs of the world", the bad guys. Illegaly collected evidence is dismissed in court so hypocrites won't serve the time they deserve.
Here is a story from 10+ years ago from my country. A mobster owned a cab company and had installed mics in all cars. He offered very cheap/free rides to politicans and rich people as a gesture of goodwill. Then he built his own blackmail archive: mistresses, hookers, gays, pedos, fears etc. After a while he was appointed as head of our FBI.