Dashcams: In road inadmissible offender protection comes first.

The highest German data protection supervisory authorities have now officially the use of so-called "Dashcams" prohibited insofar as they are not only used for personal or family activities. "The unseen films of motorists and pedestrians on public roads is a significant encroachment on the privacy of personal data law and in principle not compatible with the German Data Protection Law," the country's Data Protection Officer Baden-Wurtemberg.

The inadmissibility based on the Federal Data Protection Law (BDSG), after an observation and recording is permitted by video camera, to the extent necessary for specific defined purposes for the exercise of legitimate interests and there are no indications that the legitimate interests of those affected outweigh. Legitimate interests of other road users outweigh after the decision of the data protection supervisory authorities but in most cases, is so assumed that a prohibition of Dashcams after BDSG.

The informal self-determination includes the right of individuals to move freely in public without having to fear being made unintentionally and anlasslos the object of a video surveillance, so the contents of the official decision of the top data protection supervisory authorities. Violations can be punished with a fine.

In Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal installed in the car Dashcams are expressly prohibited: It threatens fines (in Austria up to 10,000 euros) and the seizure of the camera.
Usability in the process questionable

Is legally questionable whether the images of a vehicle-mounted camera could be used at all in the process. Privacy concerns are a recovery in civil actions against not fundamentally. Therefore, a video taken and utilized in inspection, if the court is of the opinion that this manipulation are excluded; also in criminal proceedings may be trying to introduce the video as evidence. Whether the court declares the record for exploitable depends on the individual case. However, the images can then be used also against the film ends.