Dash in the pan? Privacy ban mooted after Russian dashcam videos storm web
Dashboard cameras in Russian cars catch everything from driving offences to meteors, racking up numerous hits on YouTube. RT sums up what the world will miss if the country’s MPs succeed in banning dashcam videos from being posted on the internet.
If it weren’t for dashboard cams the world would have never seen
the 11,000-ton meteor hitting the city of Chelyabinsk in the
Urals this February, as well tons of other breathtaking, bizarre
and hilarious videos.
Russia has become the global dashcam authority because, “of
the 40 million drivers in this country, every ninth driver has a
video recorder,” automotive journalist Aleksandr Pikulenko
told RT, citing the stats from his Sobesednik.ru portal.
Vehicle owners say the camera is sometimes the only way to prove
their innocence to the police, with a high number of traffic
accidents in Russia.
Police have registered over 83,000 incidents since the start of
the year, in which more than 10,000 lives were lost.
There’s also never a dull moment on Russian roads, with people
throwing – or pretending to throw - themselves at cars to collect
injury money and things like boats, tanks and fighter jets
whizzing by.
The head of the Duma’s information policy committee, Aleksey
Mitrofanov, has recently proposed the prohibit posting dash cam
videos on the internet for violating people’s privacy, but legal
expert Ruslan Konorev says the MPs will have tough hill to climb
because “there is no clear definition of privacy in the
Constitution” and it needs to be specified in civil
legislation.
Watch more in RT’s Lindsay France’s report.