By Gary S. Vasilash

Polestar essentially spun out of Volvo, and if there is one thing that Volvo is associated with is safety. And that came along for the proverbial ride to Polestar.

To that end, Polestar has announced the Polestar 3 EV SUV will be equipped with “two closed-loop premium driver monitoring cameras” and associated software.

The gear is coming from a company named “SmartEye,” which characterizes itself as “the global leader in Human Insight AI, technology that supports and predicts human behaviour in complex environments.”

Or in this case, the Polestar 3.

The cameras will track the driver’s head, eye and eyelid movements. Should it appear that the driver is distracted or becoming sleepy, the system detects the situation and then sounds an alert or possibly actives an emergency stop function.

The Polestar 3 has an NVIDIA-based centralized computer that performs the processing for that as well as other driver-assistance systems. Which basically means it is smart.

Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO, says, “This technology addresses some of the main reasons behind fatal accidents and can help save lives by prompting the driver to refocus attention on the road – and can initiate preventive action when they don’t, or can’t.”

While this is undoubtedly laudable technology, it does seem somewhat strange to think that your car is keeping an eye on you.