[killertypo]

the verbiage is crappy and vague, but I can see a use if you need support or help and they want to give you a personable experience. That said, this issue is two-fold...it is very easy to get riled up about security (especially as it seems we lose more and more freedoms each day to "securing" our nation). On the other hand, this offers them the ability to improve the customer experience. They just could not have picked a worse way to introduce the device, especially since they are not ready to publicly talk about its use-cases.

A definite gray middle-area, but technically you do not own the car and it is their property. If you want to rent the car then they definitely can record its use to ensure that damages were not from a dog pissing on the seat vs. "i spilled some juice"

[windexh8er]

I'm curious how having the capability to either take a picture of me or possibly have a video conference improves the end user experience? First of all - doing the latter would involve me being forced to stop a moving car to engage in such an interaction. I have a rental car because my intent is to drive somewhere, not interact with someone I do not know through means of video. "Personablity" does not play into this conversation at all unfortunately - unless a random Hertz employee complimenting me on my attire or hair style at a given moment is a contributing factor to my car rental experience.

Regarding "it is very easy to get riled up about security". Yes, it is - as it very well should be. What happens if I hand a credit card over to a passenger and the "NeverLost" snaps an image of the digits? Highly unlikely but plausible - is Hertz going to guarantee PCI compliance of the footage? What if a group of individuals working for a defense contractor rent a car and are all discussing a secret, or top secret, program they are all cleared for? What are the implications of controlling that data?

I fully understand there is a gray middle-ground - however people have an expectation of privacy in a vehicle today. There are just as many counter-point scenarios to the "dog pissing" one presented (which is rather weak in my opinion).

That leads me to the question: do rental car companies have that much loss with which can be offset by having monitoring capabilities (video and audio)? There is considerable risk and infrastructure cost to implementing and protecting this "feature". I doubt that the amount of loss with regard to the vehicles themselves comes close to an all-encompassing monitoring system which could be based on the features that seem to be apparent in the latest version of "NeverLost". If the utility is for customer experience improvement - again, it's a large risk for Hertz to take on to provide minimal improvement in a rental experience and I doubt they've considered the edge cases that may put them in more fiscal predicament than not having it at all.

If anything these devices should be opt-in, meaning they can be removed by any customer prior to taking the rental vehicle. Customers will make choices based on privacy, if that seems minimal it may be today. But overall awareness exists and is garnering more consideration over time.

[killertypo]

> I'm curious how having the capability to either take a picture of me or possibly have a video conference improves the end user experience? First of all - doing the latter would involve me being forced to stop a moving car to engage in such an interaction. I have a rental car because my intent is to drive somewhere, not interact with someone I do not know through means of video. "Personablity" does not play into this conversation at all unfortunately - unless a random Hertz employee complimenting me on my attire or hair style at a given moment is a contributing factor to my car rental experience.

Please do not confuse my speaking to what the article states as being entirely in support of it. In fact the article claims that it may be for "live agent connectivity". What use is that? Who knows, but they're obviously cooking up something, that is my point.

> Regarding "it is very easy to get riled up about security". Yes, it is - as it very well should be. What happens if I hand a credit card over to a passenger and the "NeverLost" snaps an image of the digits? Highly unlikely but plausible - is Hertz going to guarantee PCI compliance of the footage? What if a group of individuals working for a defense contractor rent a car and are all discussing a secret, or top secret, program they are all cleared for? What are the implications of controlling that data?

You're goddamn right it's easy to get riled up about that and people should. I don't mean it negatively, more people should care about security.

Again you pose exactly the kind of question that should be asked and for which there is no answer, and likely why they (hertz) are being so damn vague at the moment.

> I fully understand there is a gray middle-ground - however people have an expectation of privacy in a vehicle today. There are just as many counter-point scenarios to the "dog pissing" one presented (which is rather weak in my opinion).

Anecdotal evidence is the best evidence and there are a lot of claims on both sides. Unfortunately that's the problem with picking sides, any given side has tons of evidence to back up their side. I would err on the side of "I would rather not have a camera in face."

> If anything these devices should be opt-in, meaning they can be removed by any customer prior to taking the rental vehicle. Customers will make choices based on privacy, if that seems minimal it may be today. But overall awareness exists and is garnering more consideration over time.

I agree 100%, i prefer the opt-in approach, if anything I would take a front/rear facing cam on the car to protect myself and my rental from liability during operations vs. a camera to talk to an agent.