It’s an EU decision. It will be coming to many more cars as it will be mandatory from July 2026 for all newly registered vehicles. Renault 5 is simply one of the first new cars to feature it.
According to the same law, it is illegal to use the system in a way that can identify the person, it may not save biometrics, and it must function in closed loop without sharing the data. It’s looking for things like head nodding or looking away from the road for more than 3.5 seconds while driving over 50 km/h. The camera is likely using infrared lighting as it should also work at night.
Anyway. According to the manual, it can be disabled by double tapping a button on the steering wheel or through the touch screen menus, though it will default to being enabled everytime you start the car as per the legal requirement.
If you cover it with tape, wear a mask or drive somebody else’s car in which you don’t have a profile saved, it will simply use the last previous profile and show an icon in the dashboard as a warning that the function isn’t working.









I think it’s an update from January. The first produced R5s doesn’t seem to have the camera on the A-pillar. It’s part of the media system which is used in other models as well.
I can’t imagine that rentals or fleet cars will throw a warning every time someone new uses the car, so I want to bet that the warnings can be disabled somehow with the right access to the ECU.
Renault uses their own ECU computers, which are quite expensive, but previous versions have been accessible using an OSB dongle with other software.
I’m sure someone will eventually figure out how to get into the system once these cars get old enough to reach the used market.