Are dashboard video cameras legal??

obgraham wrote:
As has been said before: It's America. You can sue anyone for anything you want.

Collecting is a different matter.

That is right.

And the big problem with that is that an innocent person being sued can go bankrupt defending him/her self. Of course lawyers don't care, they always win whether their client wins or not. :M

The Europeans laugh at the U.S. and how sue happy the people are. Our culture thrives on lawsuits. :R

Back in the "good ol' days", it was considered unethical for lawyers to advertise. Today we are bombarded with law firm advertisements in the public media to hire them to represent you to sue someone or some company.

Unless you are driving on private property, there is no issue. Even on some private property, such as a store parking lot, anything the camera catches is already in public view.

And if catching license plate numbers on camera is invasion of privacy, then why can we see them without a camera?

Some people are afraid of cameras because they are unbiased witnesses to what the "see".

I have one and I see as an unbiased witness in an accident. I would think no different than all the Cell Phone videos.
I am sure that a lawyer for someone that does a dumb move and causes an accident would love to throw out the video of the accident showing exactly how his client caused it, by driving like fool.

Many Over the Road drivers use them to protect them from those that pull directly in front of a semi, then slam on the brakes "Break Check" to collect big insurance $$$$$.

What keeps this type of things going is that many companies or people that can afford it, will just pay for the problem to go away. Sure they can get it thrown out, or win easily if it should go to court, but the legal expenses to defend oneself can bankrupt the average individual. So a slickster tells you they will settle for a thousand dollars, and a defense will cost you 10K. What does an uninformed scared person do??

obgraham wrote:
As has been said before: It's America. You can sue anyone for anything you want.

Collecting is a different matter.

That is right.

And the big problem with that is an innocent person being sued can go bankrupt defending him/her self. Of course lawyers don't care, they always win whether their client wins or not. :M

The Europeans laugh at the U.S. and how sue happy the people are. Our culture thrives on lawsuits. :R

obgraham wrote:
As has been said before: It's America. You can sue anyone for anything you want.

Collecting is a different matter.

And believe me there is a lawyer that will take the case, when you have more lawyers than Doctor's then I think that is a problem. my family Dr. has to lay out over 250K a year for malpractice insurance.

As a professional photographer who has had to deal with the issue of photos taken in public as well as what can or can't be done with them, but not a lawyer (Official disclaimer here: nothing I say should be construed as legal advice, etc.) I can tell you that in the US, anything you can see from the public right-of-way without using "extraordinary" equipment is perfectly legal to photograph. There are right of privacy/right of publicity restrictions on what you can do with the photos, however.

By "extraordinary equipment," I mean that you can't use a monster telephoto lens to peer into somebody's living room from 2 miles away, or hire a cherry-picker to look over the 10 foot fence in their backyard.

So the OP's query about the legality of dashboard cameras brings up no issues for me. I would have no fear of getting in trouble with any sort of standard dashboard camera, and while I would hire a lawyer to defend me should I get sued for recording either someone's license number or number of persons in a car, I would also not give a second's thought to the possibility of losing such a lawsuit.

Because, as @obgraham said, you can sue anybody you want for anything you want. But winning a judgement or actually collecting damages are another matter entirely. And I would anticipate the judge being sympathetic to a summary judgment with prejudice against anyone bringing an invasion of privacy suit for recording their license number as they drove down the public street. (A summary judgement with prejudice means that the issue is so ridiculous that the court finds no evidence or trial is even necessary, and don't under any circumstances attempt to bring such a suit to this court ever again. More or less.)

As for the camera over a bathroom stall, even if the stall is in a public building or facility such as a park, there ARE laws most places that spell out such a camera is specifically illegal. I know that here in Virginia, there is a specific law that makes it illegal to photograph anyone in a bathroom stall or a bathhouse changing room or a store dressing/fitting room in any state of undress whatever. But the law does not invoke any right of privacy, it just forbids taking photos there.

As has been said before: It's America. You can sue anyone for anything you want.

Collecting is a different matter.

There are laws regarding how much of the windshield can be obstructed, 5 square inches on the driver's side seems to be the acceptable limit. As far as invasion of privacy goes, I doubt that argument would fly. Would that make it illegal to take a picture out the window with a hand held camera? Some lawyer sees a paycheck.

I believe you will find that anyone in public "has no reasonable expectation to privacy".
Meaning if you are where everyone can see you, you are fair game.
I have heard this before when photographers "accidentally" catch something other than what was expected.
Maybe a lawyer will come on and explain the specifics.