Proposal to require private cars to install journey monitoring devices

In the 4th Draft of the Law on Road Traffic Safety and Order, which is seeking opinions from agencies, organizations and individuals before submitting it to the National Assembly for consideration, the Ministry of Public Security proposes that motor vehicles and specialized motorbikes participating in traffic need to have journey monitoring devices; devices to collect data and images of the driver.

For commercial vehicles, the installation of a journey monitoring device (black box), a device to collect data and images of the driver (dash cam recording cabin) is a mandatory regulation, applicable from July 1, 2023. As for private vehicles, this is the first proposal and if it becomes law, about 4 million private vehicles in Vietnam today will have to install these devices.

Current regulations also require transport businesses to transmit data from journey monitoring devices and surveillance cameras on vehicles in circulation to the software system of the Vietnam Road Administration to serve state management.

Currently, although not regulated, many private car owners have installed dash cams to monitor and record images of the car (front, rear) during operation and even when parked. However, these are mostly cameras facing the outside, that is, observing the traffic, not observing inside the cabin. The data recorded by the dash cam is the basis for car owners to resolve disputes related to law and insurance if a collision occurs. However, this data is personal property and car owners are not responsible for sharing it with others.

The draft does not have specific information on whether or not information and images must be transmitted to the management system of the authorities if it is mandatory to install a journey monitoring device and cabin camera.

In the current market, the choice of car dash cams is quite diverse. Dash cams are commonly priced at several million VND, depending on storage capacity, image quality and extended features.