Car monitoring system scans passengers to determine age, gender

Your friend’s car is checking you out. No, really.

Israeli AI company Eyesight Technologies released CabinSense on Thursday, just in time to scan and analyze your Valentine’s Day date. The software is an occupancy monitoring system, which takes similar tech from its distraction detection system, but moves the focus from the driver to the passengers.

This means for everyone who gets into a CabinSense-enabled car, your face is scanned and the car knows what you’re doing. Mostly, it “knows” that you’re there. Immediately, your age, gender, and position are recorded. 

For regular passengers, you can enroll in the program, so the system will be able to quickly recognize you and recall you from is database. That can be convenient with preferences like the temperature, seat adjustments, or media choices being offered when you sit down. 

But for everyone else, it can create the uncomfortable dynamic of being watched and tracked. The car will even “remember” you if you come back to the car. Sounds like a perfect way to catch someone cheating, like with a remembered WiFi network coming up on a smartphone…

Eyesight says all this monitoring makes for a safer car ride. It can tell if you’re sitting safely, wearing a seatbelt, and even disable airbags for kids, teenagers, or older women who could be injured by the impact of the airbag.

Most of the system’s detections won’t come into play unless the car is in a crash — then CabinSense will use the passenger data recorded to decide how “smart” safety systems should react like with certain airbags staying off for kids in car seats or auto seatbelt adjustments.

Eventually, the company wants to add objection detection to know if someone left a phone or wallet in the backseat. Also for a ride-hailing situation, the system could be used to monitor “activity” — so if a passenger pulls out a cigarette or beer bottle, the driver will be flagged.

You’re most definitely being watched.