China-made electric car gets driver to kneel on ground for facial recognition, company apologises

[Huat Zai]

 

An XPeng electric car owner complained on Chinese social media platform Weibo about the strange things his car made him do when it wanted to verify his identity through facial recognition.

The video he uploaded on Mar. 3 has gone viral with over 8 million views.

 

 

 

Car requested owner to do an identity check

 

The car owner claimed that after a recent update, he logged on to his in-car system's application and was requested to do an identity check through facial recognition.

 

Image via Weibo

 

The video shows that he was asked to place his face in front of a camera to fit into the circle designated by the app.

“Please move your face into the circle,” the app asked politely.

 

Image via Weibo

 

However, he discovered that the camera the app chose to use was near the car's front bumper, and it was pretty close to the ground.

 

Bend down or go on all fours

 

He was then forced to bend down, and tilt his head by the side, just so the app could "see "him.

 

Image via Weibo

 

"Never in my life have I expected this," the car owner said.

Another netizen reposted a photo from another post in the video's comments, which shows an XPeng car owner almost on all fours.

 

Image via Weibo

 

 

XPeng Motors apologises for poor user experience

 

A day after the video was posted, XPeng Motors issued a statement stating that they had taken down the app after receiving feedback about "poor user experience".

It explained that the application had invoked risk controls after a software update, requiring users to do facial recognition.

They have also apologised to the affected customers and will work on improving the system.

This is not the first time XPeng Motors has had trouble with "faces".

In December 2021, XPeng motors were fined RMB100,000 (S$19,440) for illegally collecting 430,000 facial images of store visitors over six months, as reported by Global Times.

 

https://mothership.sg/2023/03/kneel-for-china-car/

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