The use of a dashcam carries a fine of €1,500. Be careful if you use one!

It is an element that is increasingly present in cars and aims to offer greater security when presenting evidence to settle any legal dispute arising while driving. Dashcams or dashboard cameras that record what happens during the journey are a useful tool, regulated in many countries and very helpful in certain situations. But a user of this type of camera has been fined €1,500.

Dashcams are mounted on the windscreen or the rear window and are responsible for recording everything that happens during the journey. They use a wide-angle lens to capture an image as faithful as possible to what the driver sees, and record it so that those images can be reviewed should it be necessary to provide evidence of any incident that occurred during the trip.

Legal grey area in Spain

For many years it has been a very useful tool in countries such as Russia, where insurance fraud was quite common. It has also become popular in other countries such as Italy, and for some time now these devices have been easy to spot in cars driving in our country. But in Spain they run into an obstacle: no private individual may conduct video surveillance of public space, something only the State Security Forces and Corps are allowed to do.

This means that, without the corresponding authorisation and specific signage stating the purpose of that surveillance and how the images obtained will be processed, no private individual may use a camera that captures images of public space. And it is on this basis that a Spanish ‘dashcam‘ user has been fined €1,500.

According to the complaint, which you can consult via this link, the use of this type of camera infringes the Data Protection Law, as it gives no warning of the recording or of how the images will be used. Given this infringement, together with the prohibition on filming public spaces, the user has been proposed for a €1,500 fine. That said, this is the minimum penalty for an infringement of this kind.

This sets a precedent and makes clear that the use of ‘dashcams‘ is, for the time being, not permitted in Spain. It also calls into question video surveillance systems such as the Sentry Mode of Tesla and other means that capture images around the vehicle. How far will this restriction reach? Could it affect the 360º cameras that cars use as driver assistance systems, or the rear parking-assist cameras? There are plenty of doubts, and legislation on the matter is urgently needed.