Watches Your Eyes: EU Mandates AI Driver-Monitoring Systems in New Cars Across 27 Member States

New European Union rules require advanced driver distraction warning systems in newly sold vehicles, making AI-based tracking of eye and head movements part of vehicle safety standards.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

New vehicles sold across the European Union must now include artificial intelligence-based systems that monitor driver attention, under safety rules that became mandatory Tuesday across the bloc’s 27 member states.

The European Union’s General Safety Regulation requires Advanced Driver Distraction Warning systems, known as ADDW, in every new vehicle sold after July 7. The systems track driver behavior, including eye and head movements, to determine whether a driver is paying attention to the road, according to Access Newswire.

Smart Eye, a Swedish artificial intelligence company, is among the leading suppliers of eye-tracking and driver-monitoring technology designed to comply with the new ADDW requirements.

“This is a driver support system,” Smart Eye CEO and founder Martin Krantz told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s a life-saving technology. It really helps to prevent accidents. It’s probably gonna be just like with the seat belt and the airbag.”

Krantz said the technology can determine where a driver is looking inside a vehicle and apply different distraction limits depending on what the driver is doing.

“The tracking [has] quite a high accuracy … So if you sit in your car and you’re driving your car, and then you look at the speedometer, then what happens is that the tracking realizes that this is the speedometer that you’re looking at,” Krantz said. “And then you’re allowed to take your eyes away from the road for a certain time period. Let’s say, for example, two seconds … You have a time … that you can spend on different objects [in your car].”

The system can also warn drivers more quickly when they look at objects or devices that are restricted while driving.

Cell phone use while driving is “a forbidden thing to do in most jurisdictions,” Krantz said.

“Then it can warn immediately, ‘keep your eyes on the road,’ because it’s actually illegal to do that,” he told the DCNF. “And then if you, for example, spend time on the navigation display or on the radio, that’s also allowed, but not for too long … eventually it will tell you to move back your attention [sic] to the road. You have different distraction limits depending on the speed.”

Krantz said the system is intended to alert the driver rather than automatically report conduct to authorities.

“No one’s going to call the authorities, and no one’s going to tell on you and send along [sic] to the police or anything like that … but it’s going to be different for different car makers,” he said.

Smart Eye describes itself as “the global leader in Human Insight AI, technology that understands, supports and predicts human behavior in complex environments.” Its website lists NASA, Boeing, Harvard University and “28 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies” among its customers.

The company also said its eye-tracking systems and iMotions biosensor software are used for research and training in academic and commercial sectors. Its U.S.-based subsidiary Affectiva, a former competitor acquired by Smart Eye in 2021, provides facial coding technology intended to help companies understand how consumers respond to content, products and services.

Smart Eye said the July 7 mandate represents a major turning point for driver-monitoring technology in Europe.

“July 7 is a landmark day for road safety in Europe,” Krantz said, according to Access Newswire. “For Smart Eye, this is a moment we have been working toward for years. Together with our industry peers, we have achieved something significant: driver monitoring is now a required part of vehicle safety across Europe. But what matters most is that more lives will be saved on Europe’s roads. We believe this regulation will set a precedent for other parts of the world.”

The new mandate places AI-based driver attention monitoring alongside other vehicle safety requirements, with European regulators framing the technology as a tool to reduce distracted-driving crashes.