THE LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR 'DASH CAMS' IN VEHICLES HAS BEEN PASSED - WHEN WILL THEY BE ACTIVATED AND WHAT WILL THEY RECORD - Filenews 16/4 by Theodora Nikolaou
The Plenary Session of the Parliament today approved the bill proposed by Stavros Papadouris on behalf of the Movement of Ecologists-Citizens' Cooperation, which regulates the operation of "dash cams" in vehicles.
The purpose of this proposal is to amend the Road Safety Law, in order to institutionalize and regulate, among other things, the use of electronic image recording devices in private motor vehicles, in private or public vehicles used for professional purposes, in government vehicles, as well as in vehicles of the wider public sector.
The rapporteur of the law proposal stated that "today there are thousands of cars on the roads that have dash cams, without a legislative framework and without control. Any cars that are sold as new have these cameras built into them."
The law proposal, he explained, "allows their operation and at the same time to give the opportunity for their use to be done under the supervision of the competent authority, i.e. the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection so that they can operate and serve purposes such as in the event of an accident so that a court order can present to the court what happened 10 seconds before and 10 seconds after the accident. A second option provided is that in case of criminal activity and malicious damage, the cameras will be activated, since they have a sensor. The cameras in question monitor but do not store or publish anything. At the same time, government vehicles are also included in the legislative framework."
Mr. Papadouris reminded that in the recent tragic car accident that killed PAOK fans, the police used these 20 seconds to determine how the collision happened.
AKEL took a position against this proposal, stressing that a "big brother" will be created on the Cypriot streets.
The law proposal was passed into law with 19 votes in favour, 16 against and 1 abstention.
