EU Mandates 'Distraction Warning System' on New Cars from Today: Tests Show Frequent False Alarms, Cannot Be Permanently Disabled

Starting July 7, 2026, all newly sold vehicles in the European Union must be equipped with an Advanced Driver Distraction Warning system (ADDW) under the General Safety Regulation. The system uses an infrared camera to track the driver’s gaze and cannot be permanently turned off.
(Background: Meta has launched an AI image generation tool called Muse Image, but it uses your IG photos without your consent.)
(Background supplement: Meta monitors employees’ computers for AI data leaks; the official investigation was urgently halted.)

Beginning July 7, in addition to any new car bought within the EU, there will be a small camera near the dashboard pointed at the driver’s face—and this is a mandatory requirement under the EU’s General Safety Regulation: all newly sold vehicles must be fitted with a monitoring device called the Advanced Driver Distraction Warning system (ADDW).

If you look at your phone for too long, turn around to soothe a child in the back seat, or even just glance at the dashboard a couple of times, the car will use a combination of sound and lights to remind you to “pay attention while driving.”

Infrared is watching your eyes—can’t be turned off

ADDW’s technical principle is not complicated: an infrared camera installed near the steering wheel or dashboard tracks the direction of the driver’s eye gaze at all times. When the speed exceeds 50 km/h, if the gaze leaves the road for more than 3.5 seconds; when the speed is between 20 and 50 km/h, if the gaze leaves for more than 6 seconds, the system will issue a warning using a combination of lights, sound, or vibration.

The system automatically activates at speeds of about 20 km/h (12 mph) or higher, and it is designed so that the driver cannot permanently turn it off.

According to estimates from research funded by the EU, driver distraction is one of the causes of 5% to 25% of crashes; the full set of safety regulations is expected to save more than 25,000 lives by 2038. Although the intent is good, the problem lies in the real-world experience after the rules hit the road.

Belgian auto platform Gocar.be tested the Xpeng P7+ and found that the system cannot really tell “distraction” from “normal driving.” Glancing at the scenery outside the window or reaching to switch a radio channel will be judged as distraction and trigger a warning.

Reddit user premium_bawbag rented a Ford Puma for a week and complained about the same situation in a post: within 10 minutes of getting on the road, an amber warning light lit up on the dashboard with a loud bang, prompting a message telling him to take a break; after another 10 minutes, the warning light turned red and the sound got louder. He also found that turning off the system is only temporary, because every time the engine is restarted, the ADDW automatically resumes operation.

The regulation requires a “closed loop” for data, but no one is responsible for auditing

Besides being intrusive, there is another problem: the data flows behind this system. The GSR requires that ADDW adopt a “closed loop” design and must not use biometric data. Data used to determine whether the driver is distracted must not leave the vehicle and must not be transmitted to the manufacturer, servers, or any third parties—in theory, everything is processed locally in the car.

But the devil is in the implementation details. The regulation does not require any independent audit or verification mechanism to confirm whether the system installed by manufacturers truly achieves a “closed loop.” It also does not specify what happens to data once the system judges it as “distraction,” how long it is retained, or when it is deleted.

Although Article 6(3) of the GSR states that the system design must not continuously record or retain data beyond the “necessary” scope, it never defines what “necessary” means for ADDW, nor does it set out a specific retention period. If this data leaks, or is shared without consent, it could expose the driver’s daily routine patterns, location information, or even who is sitting in the car. Once this kind of information is obtained by bad actors, it can easily be used as material for identity theft or phishing scams.

After all, there are cases where in-car video footage has leaked. A Reuters investigation in 2023 noted that multiple former Tesla employees said that between 2019 and 2022, the company’s internal communications system was used to privately circulate sensitive footage captured by customers’ vehicle cameras—content including crash scenes, road rage confrontations, and even footage of people who were undressed near the vehicles.

Some employees could also see the locations where the videos were recorded, giving them the chance to trace the car owners’ actual addresses. The GM and Tesla cases were not about ADDW footage, and neither company had a legal obligation at the time to explain what the cameras recorded, as EU automakers will be required to do in the future. But both incidents illustrate the same thing: as long as manufacturers collect sensitive data under vague rules, someone downstream—insurance companies, data broker firms, or employees using messaging software—will eventually get their hands on that batch of data.