If You Get Drunk and Brandish a Fake Gun in a Waymo, Don't Blame the Cameras Firing a toy gun out of a camera-covered robotaxi while underage drinking was never going to end well. Two teenagers were detained by police in San Mateo, California, earlier this week after a Waymo representative alerted law enforcement that the vehicle's underage occupants were drinking alcohol and shooting what appeared to be a real weapon out of the driverless car. A Waymo representative, "monitoring the vehicle's live interior camera feeds," called the San Mateo Police Department after seeing the teens fire a toy water-bead blaster that resembled a real gun, according to NBC Bay Area. Waymo shared the car's location with authorities and disabled the vehicle after telling its teen occupants it was "experiencing mechanical trouble," according to the cops. In an attempt to inject a bit of humor into what could have been a more serious situation, the police department began its recap of the event on Facebook with "Parents, do you know where your teens are? @waymo does!" While the levity was mostly well-received in the comments, some people used the post to raise questions about privacy in the age of autonomous vehicles. Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics program at Santa Clara University, told NPR the post may "make Waymo passengers wonder what triggers a police intervention." At the same time, Alessandro Acquisti, an information technology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the outlet that Waymo is "most likely" not being entirely truthful to customers about its use of their data. But framing this case as a privacy issue fuels misunderstanding of Waymo's operations and a company's responsibility to its customers. You have to be within range of your Waymo to unlock the ride. At 14 and 15