California Dash Cam Audio - Legal?

[SoCalDriver]

I have my mini 801 set to record audio along with video. Kinda wondering if this is legal in California as I know we're a "two party consent" state. Seems a lot of this comes down to privacy. Should people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in my car? Any lawyers here know the ins and outs? Should I put a sticker on my window saying audio recording in progress?

 

[jokiin]

Should I put a sticker on my window saying audio recording in progress?

we're including the warning stickers specifically for this reason

 

[GJHS]

I have my mini 801 set to record audio along with video. Kinda wondering if this is legal in California as I know we're a "two party consent" state. Seems a lot of this comes down to privacy. Should people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in my car? Any lawyers here know the ins and outs? Should I put a sticker on my window saying audio recording in progress?

There seems to be more discussion regarding recording voices rather than video. The general answer is that driving is done in public places and there is no expectation of privacy in those places. I am guessing if you were to record your passengers without consent and use it, that could be a problem. It seems a lot of problems occur when the video in question is uploaded to YouTube not used to prove innocence to your insurance company.
Irregardless of the law, some police departments are trying to put an end to being recorded, yet have not been successful due to something we call the Constitution.

 

[kamkar]

It is never fun haveing some one looking over your shoulder to see if you are dooing a good job, byt when it come to the police i consider them such a important part of a society that they should expect citizens to want quality assurance to a high degree.
Especially when there is often stories about misuse of powers - coruption - incompetence and so on among the leading branches of a society.

And anyway if it is legal to record video, then what is beeing said on that video could be resolved by a person who can lip read.

Personally i respect your right to do whatever you want on or within your property, as long as you dont ask me to get naked and be ready to be probed

 

[tofurkey]

One of the things I like about the Vico WF1 is that it has an audible voice announcement everytime it enters recording mode, so that everyone in the vehicle would know recording has started. Of course, that wouldn't help someone who gets into your car if you haven't shut if off.

 

[BobDiaz]

For friends and family, I tell them that the camera is recording audio along with the video and I tell them that as soon as I start the car and the camera is recording. The only issue we could have is if there's an accident and the recording is proof of who's at fault. Because I warn everyone, I don't see any problem with it.

 

[mrted]

I'm not a lawyer, so I could be really off base here. But, if I'm in someone else's car and we are on a public road, we are on public property regardless of being in a private car so I would hazard to say there is no expectation of privacy. The proof would be that if the car is parked/stopped anyone could see into it, including traffic and surveillance cameras.

mrted

 

[SoCalDriver]

Thanks for the responses guys!

 

[Sgt_G]

I was looking for the law in my state (didn't find anything) and happened upon the dash-cam law for California. I don't think there's a camera on the market that complies with the law as written. To wit, the camera must be able to record your speed and G-forces, and may only save 30 second before/after a G-shock triggered event.

As to audio, you're supposed to have a warning sticker advising your passangers that they will be recorded.

 

[Reg dashcam]

I don't do any of that stuff. I live in California and if you're recorded on my dashcam, you're recorded on my dashcam. I don't think anybody is really that overzealous to enforce such vague petty rules.

 

[jokiin]

We've made our cameras compliant, whether or not people choose to use the appropriate settings or not is really up to the individual

 

[Jeremy]

I was looking for the law in my state (didn't find anything) and happened upon the dash-cam law for California. I don't think there's a camera on the market that complies with the law as written. To wit, the camera must be able to record your speed and G-forces, and may only save 30 second before/after a G-shock triggered event.

As to audio, you're supposed to have a warning sticker advising your passangers that they will be recorded.

Interestingly, the part of the law you are referring to is worded exactly as follows (just a portion of full section):

"As used in this section, “video event recorder” means a video recorder that continuously records in a digital loop, recording audio, video, and G-force levels, but saves video only when triggered by an unusual motion or crash or when operated by the driver to monitor driver performance." (underline by me)

Bearing in mind that that the Dashcam must conform to this law merely to be legal when attached to the windshield in the allowed areas and be exempted from being considered an "obstruction", the law itself states that the camera must "record" in a digital loop. I only know of one definition of "record" when referring to a vide camera, and it is rather synonymous with "save". This makes the subsequent statements about "saving" video somewhat muddled. One might infer that the writers of the law were referring to the write-protection feature of "locked" files.

Additionally I take the above underlined (red) statement to mean I as the "driver" am fully within my rights under this law to (using a compliant and windshield mounted cam) "save" the said recorded video at any time I wish either by manually locking my files or downloading permanent copies off of the SD card before they get overwritten.

The 30 sec reference says:

"Video event recorders [to be legal when mounted on the windshield in a designated area] shall store no more than 30 seconds before and after a triggering event" (bracketed words inserted by me for some big-picture context)

I personally don't see how this statement can be made to harmonize with the earlier portion with the automated functions we have on current cameras. However, if recording in 1 min segments (which I do) and the earlier statement allows one to "save" at will, then who is to say what the triggering event is? What stops me from just always saying it's in the middle of the saved 1 min file?

I think this is simply an example of a law written by people who clearly don't understand the technology.

And remember this is all just so the camera is legal if ATTACHED TO THE WINDSHIELD. It's a subsection of the law about obstructing/attaching things to the windshield.

 

[Jeremy]

I have my mini 801 set to record audio along with video. Kinda wondering if this is legal in California as I know we're a "two party consent" state. Seems a lot of this comes down to privacy. Should people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in my car? Any lawyers here know the ins and outs? Should I put a sticker on my window saying audio recording in progress?

OP, the law says that, for your dash am to be legal when mounted on your windshield in a designated area, you must post a sign in a visible area in your vehicle to inform passengers that their conversations may be recorded. Your camera must also meet certain requirements, but I'm not sure how willing or competent any judge/prosecutor/police officer is going to be to nose through your car and rip out and examine your camera:

Read the law: V C Section 26708

 

[irononreverse]

Interestingly, the part of the law you are referring to is worded exactly as follows (just a portion of full section):

"As used in this section, “video event recorder” means a video recorder that continuously records in a digital loop, recording audio, video, and G-force levels, but saves video only when triggered by an unusual motion or crash or when operated by the driver to monitor driver performance." (underline by me)

Bearing in mind that that the Dashcam must conform to this law merely to be legal when attached to the windshield in the allowed areas and be exempted from being considered an "obstruction", the law itself states that the camera must "record" in a digital loop. I only know of one definition of "record" when referring to a vide camera, and it is rather synonymous with "save". This makes the subsequent statements about "saving" video somewhat muddled. One might infer that the writers of the law were referring to the write-protection feature of "locked" files.

Additionally I take the above underlined (red) statement to mean I as the "driver" am fully within my rights under this law to (using a compliant and windshield mounted cam) "save" the said recorded video at any time I wish either by manually locking my files or downloading permanent copies off of the SD card before they get overwritten.

The 30 sec reference says:

"Video event recorders [to be legal when mounted on the windshield in a designated area] shall store no more than 30 seconds before and after a triggering event" (bracketed words inserted by me for some big-picture context)

I personally don't see how this statement can be made to harmonize with the earlier portion with the automated functions we have on current cameras. However, if recording in 1 min segments (which I do) and the earlier statement allows one to "save" at will, then who is to say what the triggering event is? What stops me from just always saying it's in the middle of the saved 1 min file?

I think this is simply an example of a law written by people who clearly don't understand the technology.

And remember this is all just so the camera is legal if ATTACHED TO THE WINDSHIELD. It's a subsection of the law about obstructing/attaching things to the windshield.

There are a lot of devices that actually work like that. They constantly cache the video in memory but only save it as a file when triggered. If nothing happens or it's powered off, nothing is stored.

This reminds me of the guy who had a Google glass like device mounted on his head which did this and he was assaulted in McDonald's in France and the damage to his device caused images that wouldn't normally have been saved to be saved in the buffer.

 

[Jeremy]

There are a lot of devices that actually work like that. They constantly cache the video in memory but only save it as a file when triggered. If nothing happens or it's powered off, nothing is stored.

This reminds me of the guy who had a Google glass like device mounted on his head which did this and he was assaulted in McDonald's in France and the damage to his device caused images that wouldn't normally have been saved to be saved in the buffer.

Very interesting, I didn't know those existed.

I wonder if the CA law makers were thinking of that when they wrote the law. I wouldn't think so due to the idiocy suggested by the self contradicting language of that sub section.

 

[jokiin]

probably written around the functionality of the Drivecam product which started around 15 years ago from memory

 

[Jeremy]

probably written around the functionality of the Drivecam product which started around 15 years ago from memory

Hmm I'll have to check that out.

What's your take on the "saves video only when triggered by an unusual motion or crash or when operated by the driver to monitor driver performance" statement?

I'm no lawyer but sounds to me like I can "save" whatever footage I want, whenever I want, in order to "monitor driver performance."

 

[jokiin]

Hmm I'll have to check that out.

What's your take on the "saves video only when triggered by an unusual motion or crash or when operated by the driver to monitor driver performance" statement?

I'm no lawyer but sounds to me like I can "save" whatever footage I want, whenever I want, in order to "monitor driver performance."

the automatically saved event files need to be 1 minute total, we've made an allowance to support that in the firmware, regular recordings get overwritten and are not saved as such, it's a bit of a grey area and written based on outdated technology I think, we made allowance for the 1 minute save and we are including the warning stickers for the audio recording, about all we can do at the moment I think

 

[Sgt_G]

Interestingly, the part of the law you are referring to is worded exactly

Thanks. I was going by memory from what I read several days ago. At the time, all I could think was "there's not a single dash-cam model on the market that fits this law."

I think this is simply an example of a law written by people who clearly don't understand the technology.

Probably true. Or, worse yet, perhaps they do understand it and don't want dash cams to become popular. Maybe they don't want people challenging tickets in court and/or posting bad drivers on YouTube.

 

[Jeremy]

Haha, my original plan was thus to not mount my camera on my windshield and thus not have to worry about whether my cam meets the "requirements".

Cuz if it doesn't meet the "requirements", it is considered a non exempt obstruction on your windshield and illegal.

At least that's how I understand the law. If they wanted to regulate the cameras themselves they should have made a separate law.