Modern Hyundais keep an eye on the person behind the wheel, literally. An infrared camera on the steering column tracks your face and decides whether you’re paying attention. Four owners now say that judgment is unreliable enough to be a hazard, and they’ve taken the argument to federal court.
The case
According to the federal court docket, plaintiffs Helen Ledezma, Clifford Leone, Jeffrey Weisbrot, on behalf of all other similarly situated and Daniel Toye filed suit against Hyundai Motor America and Hyundai Motor Company on September 16, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The case number is 2:2026cv10562.
The court classifies it as Contract: Other. That’s a useful tell. This looks like a warranty-and-consumer-protection fight over whether owners got what they paid for, not a personal-injury case built on crashes. It’s a proposed class action. No class has been certified, and no court has found anything wrong with the system. justia
What the camera actually does
You don’t need the complaint to understand why owners are frustrated. Hyundai’s own manuals spell out the behavior.
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On the 2025 Ioniq 5, Emergency Stop is ready to operate when both Smart Cruise Control and Lane Following Assist operate, and it uses the driver’s distraction information detected by the in-cabin camera. If the camera decides your attention has lapsed long enough and you don’t respond to warnings, the car controls the steering wheel and brake pedal to stop the vehicle within the driving lane. The same manual notes that Lane Following Assist cannot be turned on if the in-cabin camera is malfunctioning. Emergency Stop operation – Hyundai Owner’s Manual
The 2026 Palisade manual adds the part owners hate most. When the vehicle is restarted, Forward Attention Warning always turns on. The Warning method for FAW can not be changed. And turning the warning off doesn’t turn the camera off: the in-cabin camera still operates to detect the driver’s forward attention under the condition Emergency Stop can operate. hyundai
Hyundai also publishes a long list of conditions that can confuse the system. It includes many kinds of eyewear (sunglasses, thick lenses, and infrared-cutoff glasses), heavy eye makeup, hats, glare, the driver being too tall or short, and even a hand on the wheel blocking the lens, according to Hyundai’s owner’s manual. hyundai
That list is the crux of the case. A plaintiff’s lawyer can read it as Hyundai admitting the system misfires in everyday conditions. Hyundai’s lawyers will read it as a disclosed limitation that buyers were told about.
Why your glasses might be the problem
Here’s the tech detail most coverage skips. Driver-monitoring cameras work in near-infrared light. The car lights your face with an infrared LED that you can’t see, which is how the system works at night. Plenty of modern lenses, including many sunglasses and some prescription coatings, are designed to block infrared. To the camera, your eyes can simply disappear. Software can’t track what the sensor can’t see, so this isn’t something a quick update is guaranteed to fix.
The plaintiffs’ firm Singleton Schreiber is soliciting owners on its website. It claims a Hyundai service bulletin describes the alerts as a normal characteristic of the system rather than a malfunction and steers owners toward changing eyewear or seat position, without offering a repair. Treat that as an advocate’s characterization, not a court finding. singletonschreibersingletonschreiber
Hyundai has won the last round on this camera
This isn’t the camera’s first lawsuit. In 2025, an Illinois Santa Fe owner sued under the state’s biometric privacy law, claiming the camera harvested facial data. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly dismissed the claim, finding the complaint failed to plausibly allege that Hyundai collected, captured, or otherwise obtained users’ data. The ruling also noted Hyundai’s position that its manual states the camera does not transmit or store video. courtlistener
The new case avoids that weakness. It’s not about where the data goes. It’s about whether the system works as sold. That’s a different and arguably stronger argument.
What owners can do now
Understand the logic of the system. Per the Ioniq 5 manual, Emergency Stop needs both Smart Cruise Control and Lane Following Assist active. Running cruise with Lane Following Assist off takes the emergency-stop scenario out of play. Check your own manual first, though, because Hyundai notes on some models that Smart Cruise Control operation is limited if the in-cabin camera is unable to detect your face. hyundai
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Don’t tape over the camera. The manual says blocking the lens triggers its own warnings. It may also leave you without features you paid for.
Build a paper trail. Log every false alert with date, speed, eyewear, and conditions. Insist that the dealer write the complaint on the repair order, even if the answer is “operating as designed.” Those records matter for lemon-law claims and for any eventual class settlement. Dashcam footage of a sudden slowdown is worth keeping too, since rear-end liability typically falls on the driver behind you.
Shopping for a new Hyundai? Test-drive it on the highway, with cruise engaged, while wearing your everyday sunglasses. Ten minutes will tell you more than any brochure.
Would you trust a camera to decide you’re not paying attention, or is that the part you’d turn off first?