Will the U.S. Follow the EU’s Lead on Driver-Monitoring Cameras?

The EU's Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW) system^[1] has caused quite a stir. With all new cars, trucks, vans, and buses required to carry a camera pointed at the driver's face — allegedly to alert drivers when they look away from the road — privacy advocates are concerned about its data collection practices.

The storm is seemingly headed for the U.S., where driver data privacy is already in tatters, whether that’s through car manufacturers collecting vast amounts of personal information and selling it to third parties or AI-powered license plate readers creating a nationwide surveillance network.

It’s therefore natural for American drivers to wonder whether an EU-style driver-facing camera could eventually make its way to their cars.

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Will driver-monitoring cameras become mandatory in the U.S.?

The U.S. currently doesn’t have any federal law mandating the installation of cabin cameras or sensors to detect driver drowsiness or inattentiveness.

Cars sold in the U.S. aren’t entirely without driver-facing cameras or sensors. Many automobile manufacturers already offer such (voluntary) features, primarily to enable hands-free driving and meet safety rating criteria.

1. GM's Super Cruise uses an infrared camera mounted on the steering column that tracks your eye and head position to confirm you are watching the road, similar to the EU's ADDW system.
2. Ford's BlueCruise also uses a driver-facing camera to ensure your eyes remain on the road during hands-free driving.
3. Nissan's ProPILOT Assist 2, available on models such as the Sentra and Kicks, also comes with a driver-facing camera to confirm driver attentiveness during single-lane, hands-free highway driving.

Federal mandate to detect drunk driving is in the works

The only federal mandate focuses on alcohol-impaired driving, and even that has not yet been implemented.

Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed in November 2021, directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to prescribe standards requiring passenger motor vehicles to be equipped with advanced drunk- and impaired-driving prevention technology by November 15, 2024.

19 months past the deadline, no such technology or device has yet been federally introduced. The same section also required the NHTSA to submit an annual report to Congress if no such rule had been prescribed by the due date.

Complying with this requirement, the NHTSA published a report in February 2026 acknowledging that there’s currently "no in-vehicle technology in production capable of passively measuring blood alcohol concentration (BAC) or breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) at or above 0.08 g/dL."

Many automotive experts estimate that such technology may not be ready for deployment until 2027. Even after that, manufacturers could be given another 2-3 years to integrate it into their vehicles.

How the U.S. plans to detect impaired drivers

More than 30 U.S. states, along with Washington, D.C., already mandate ignition interlock devices for convicted drunk-driving offenders. However, these are active devices, requiring the driver to blow into a breathalyzer before (and sometimes during) driving to detect high blood alcohol levels.

What the NHTSA is pursuing, however, is a passive system that could measure alcohol concentration automatically in the background, without requiring any action from the driver.

The report mentions that the NHTSA currently has two approaches under development:

1. A breath-based analyzer that uses infrared sensors built into the vehicle cabin to analyze a driver's exhaled breath without requiring them to blow into a mouthpiece.
2. Touch-based sensors that use tissue spectroscopy. Embedded into vehicle components, these sensors could estimate a driver's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) through the skin.

However, the NHTSA acknowledges that these sensors are not yet ready to be integrated into vehicles sold to the general public.

While camera-based driver monitoring systems are becoming common in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), they’re not yet capable of detecting alcohol impairment. They’re primarily designed to detect driver drowsiness and inattention, not intoxication.

Driver data in the U.S. is already at risk

The introduction of ADDW in the EU has triggered a broader privacy conversation. With cameras and sensors looking at you while you drive, the amount of personal data they can collect and share is daunting.

The Mozilla Foundation's recent report shows that these privacy worries are not a future problem but something that’s already happening. The report reviewed 25 car brands and found that around 84% of automobile manufacturers said they can share your personal data.

These cars can collect a host of personally identifiable information, including your name, address, demographic data, financial account details, driver's license number, IP address, employment information, identification numbers, biometric and facial geometric features, and health data.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. The U.S. is also witnessing the rapid expansion of a nationwide surveillance network powered by Flock Safety's AI-powered Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras.

Originally designed to help law enforcement recover stolen vehicles, locate missing people, and solve crimes, these cameras have increasingly been used by federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for enforcing immigration.

A California lawsuit alleges that Flock allowed out-of-state and federal agencies to bypass local access restrictions, including one instance in which the California Highway Patrol reportedly searched data from 845 localities in a single query on behalf of ICE.

What can you do to protect yourself

If you're a U.S. driver concerned about your car monitoring you, collecting excessive amounts of personal data, and sharing it with third parties, you can simply choose not to buy a vehicle equipped with such systems or, where applicable, not use the optional hands-free driving system (a choice that EU drivers no longer have).

As for protecting yourself against data harvesting by car manufacturers and Flock's ALPR cameras — or any future federally mandated driver-monitoring technology — your options are largely around minimizing the privacy impact rather than preventing it. This includes:

1. Opting out of optional data-sharing programs wherever possible.
2. Limiting the amount of information you share with your vehicle's connected services or third-party apps.
3. Using third-party protection tools, such as identity theft protection services and data removal services, to reduce the risk of your personal information being misused.

Bottom line

Thankfully, the U.S. isn't currently planning to roll out a government-mandated driver-facing camera. Lawmakers are instead focused on creating a rule to prevent alcohol-impaired driving-related traffic incidents.

That said, many modern automakers, such as GM, Ford, and Nissan, already offer driver-facing camera technology as part of their advanced driver assistance systems. Most importantly, however, these systems are not mandated by law.

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Author Details

Krishi Chowdhary

About the Author

Krishi Chowdhary specializes in digital privacy, cybersecurity, and consumer technology. He has written extensively on online privacy tools and broader cybersecurity topics, including online scams, data breaches, age verification, and emerging digital threats. Krishi believes technology reporting should empower readers, not confuse them, and is committed to making even the most technical subjects easy to understand without compromising on accuracy or depth. His work has appeared in leading technology publications, including CNET, ExpressVPN, and TechRadar, where he has covered topics ranging from cybersecurity incidents and privacy product announcements to artificial intelligence and major technology news