Which country is this?

Switzerland has it in a grey area. You certainly can't publish the videos on YouTube, but it could be examined by the police.

It's certainly a net positive on society to allow dashcams, since it resolves ambiguity around liability.

"In Germany, the law prohibits the publication of recordings made by other people, road users and license plates."

Apropos, not related, but after the war victims of holocaust often recognized their tormentors from TV or from newspapers.

Not the case in Germany. You just can't post the videos to public places.

https://www.dw.com/en/dashcams-in-germany-permissible-in-cou...

Austria is supposedly completely illegal, but unless the police there will stop you for having one, I'd probably risk it. Perhaps courts wouldn't admit it as evidence, but insurance arbitration might, or it might at lease avoid an insurance fight altogether.

The police in Austria will stop you for having one, and it's a 200+ EUR fine.

Showing your footage to an insurance company would make them obligated to report you to the police.

No, dashcams that constantly take video while driving are illegal in Germany. Just recording, even if you don't publish it. Courts are still allowed to consider such illegally taken footage when considering a case. That's what the article you link to says.

Most dashcams are for resolving liability with authorities or insurance, not for publication.

You can post it on YouTube but you need to anonymize the footage. No plates and any identifying information which can be quite tricky. For example if you post a video of a rare car of which maybe 1 person owns one would count as identifiable.

I believe in certain extreme cases some courts in Switzerland did permit such footage in court.

Austria, for example. The fines go up to 25.000 EUR AFAIK.

https://www.oeamtc.at/thema/vorschriften-strafen/zulaessigke...

> Any form of systematic surveillance is prohibited. So recording anything that happens in front of the lens - without any other primary purpose - is classified as surveillance activity. This activity is reserved for the state.

Wow, not dystopian at all. I figured it was some way to try to prevent some kind of stasi like surveillance at all, but it just makes it more official. :s

Yeah, there are various European countries that prohibit security cameras of all types. They are nuts as far as I'm concerned.

Imagine this: suppose there is a big company called Nile that sells a door security camera called Ding. This security camera happens to upload everything to the company servers. Since it is very popular, it has a huge coverage. If there are no restrictions on surveiling public ground, Nile could engage in all sorts of things, like tracking cars with license plates, etc. That's why Europe places restrictions on this sort of stuff.

You can still use a Ding, but it can only point at your private property and you have to inform people who may enter your property that it's being recorded.