The European Union (EU) road safety drive just shifted into top gear as regulations in the bloc have evolved to the point where, as of today, July 7, every new car and van registered in the EU must ship with an infrared camera permanently directed at the driver’s face.
A standoff is now brewing as the EU’s explanation that the new update is its solution to drastically bring down road accidents has proven insufficient for critics, who insist that the privacy and extra expense tradeoff is a bad deal for drivers.
While that drama plays out, motorists in any of the 27 member states where the new rule applies have to make choices, and none are comfortable.
- Option A: Take a vehicle that studies your eyes, blinks, and gaze every time the engine runs.
- Option B: Hold on to an older car where the new infrared camera rules don’t apply.
For drivers on the safety lane, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD), which has been touted as a solution to the human factor in accidents are being squeezed too as the company scrapped its one-off purchase price in Europe for a monthly fee.
Why are driver cameras being installed in new EU cars?
New cars sold in the EU are being fitted with driver-monitoring infrared cameras as part of the requirements from Regulation 2019/2144, the bloc’s revised General Safety Regulation, which entered its final phase today, July 7.
Before the latest revision, new rules under the General Safety Regulation applied to new vehicle types from 2022 and 2024. This stage applies five new features to any new car or van sold off a dealer lot:
- Automatic emergency braking that can spot pedestrians and cyclists
- Driver-distraction camera
- Redesigned cabs for better forward vision
- Grip tests carried out on worn rather than new tyres
- Wider panels of safety glass to soften pedestrian head injuries
EU draws criticism over in-vehicle camera
The infrared camera meant to track eye movement, blink rate, gaze direction, and yawning to gauge distraction is the most divisive bit of this regulation.
The invasive elements are also unignorable. A lens behind the steering wheel or near the windscreen pillar is bad enough. Swiss publication Le News said manufacturers are required to turn the camera back on every time the vehicle restarts, even if owners switch it off.
The outlet reported that Switzerland’s Federal Roads Office insisted that images are processed in real time inside a closed circuit. It also said it does not store video footage, nor does it run it through any biometric identification layer. However, those words don’t carry much weight among skeptics.
Cryptopolitan reported in May 2026 that General Motors had to pay $12.75 million after California found the automaker secretly sold OnStar subscribers’ location and driving data to two data brokers.
Every new safety feature comes with an extra cost
The second grievance is money. AutoNext said the online backlash has centered on cost as much as surveillance, with buyers frustrated that each new mandate lifts already high new-car prices.
Alcohol plays a role in roughly a quarter of fatal European crashes and speeding in about 30 percent. The European Parliament put road deaths at around 19,800 across the EU in 2024. The Commission expects the full regulation to save more than 25,000 lives and prevent at least 140,000 serious injuries by 2038.
The alternative to invasive surveillance, Tesla’s FSD, does not give drivers much respite in terms of pricing. The EV maker dropped the one-time €7,500 purchase for Full Self-Driving in Europe and moved to a subscription of €99 a month.
Another catch is coverage: FSD (Supervised) is approved only in the Netherlands and Lithuania, so buyers elsewhere pay for a capability their car cannot legally use. CEO Elon Musk has said older cars built with HW3 hardware cannot reach full autonomy at all and would need a retrofit.
Privacy proponents won’t like the updates the EU has in store. New cars must already be pre-wired for alcohol interlocks, though the devices themselves are not yet required. Brussels is separately exploring technology that would make cars brake automatically when they exceed the speed limit, possibly from 2030, using traffic-sign recognition and GPS. That remains an early-stage idea rather than law, and the Commission must deliver an evaluation of the current rules to Parliament by 7 July 2027.