Tesla App Update Hints at Possible Upcoming Face Recognition Check to Use FSD

Tesla’s latest app update, which was released on July 1, contains several interesting new features and hints about upcoming car capabilities. In a deep dive into the changes in version 4.58.5, the Not a Tesla App blog has detailed every change, including a few undocumented ones that point to features that aren’t ready for wide release yet.

Most interestingly, Tesla appears to be laying the groundwork to use the interior cameras in its cars to authenticate driver identity. This could have far-reaching implications, although the capability seems to be designed around securing the use of Full Self Driving. User authentication could mean that Tesla will only allow FSD to be used when a specific person or people are in the driver’s seat, even if it has been paid for.

The most obvious use case would be age verification, which Tesla is already known to be working on. While this raises privacy concerns, locking FSD could be an important safety feature to prevent misuse by inexperienced drivers and address safety concerns. Interestingly, it could also introduce tighter safeguards against distracted driving, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk himself encouraged in a controversial social media post last year.

Having moved to a subscription-based model for FSD, it is also possible that Telsa is considering licensing it per person rather than per vehicle. This could mean that users can take advantage of their own subscription while driving a rental car, for example, although on the other hand it could mean limits on the number of FSD users per car, per subscription.

Face recognition could also allow for blacklisting specific people, strengthening parental controls, and automatically loading personal profiles with each user’s preferred settings. With the imminent large-scale rollout of driverless Cybercabs, Tesla could also use it to verify rider identity and automatically apply personalisations.

It should be noted that Tesla car interiors are only equipped with standard cameras, which aren’t capable of 3D mapping or infrared, like many other authentication systems use. Even AI-powered face recognition alone cannot determine a person’s exact age.

Other changes in the new version of the Tesla app include an undocumented “Share App With Vehicle” capability that could point to streaming or mirroring apps on a user’s phone to the car’s central display.

Building on previous changes that gamify usage of FSD, it appears that Tesla will add more achievements and visible statistics, and make them visible in the Tesla app rather than just in the vehicle.

Finally, the software can now accurately show the Coastal Blue colour option which was recently introduced for the Model Y in Europe.