The days of the Russian dashcam, a staple of YouTube humor enjoyed around the world, might be numbered.
A senior State Duma deputy has proposed a ban on posting the dashboard camera recordings on the the Internet, saying that they violate people's right to privacy.
Alexei Mitrofanov, head of the Duma's committee on Information Policy, warned at a Duma roundtable on measures to protect children from offensive language on the Internet that dashcam recordings needed to be considered separately because they may violate Article 24 of the Constitution if posted without the consent of those filmed.
The Constitution's section on the right to privacy says that "the collection, storage, use and dissemination of information about a person's private life without his consent is not permitted."
Dashcams have recorded everything from state officials' traffic violations and rudeness to bizarre road accidents and the meteorite that fell over the Chelyabinsk region in February.
But not all deputies agreed with Mitrofanov.
"My colleague said something stupid," Deputy Vyacheslav Lysakov told Gazeta.ru.
The United Russia member added that he thought videos showing violations should be distributed as widely as possible and that law enforcement officials should view them to find violators.
Last winter, Liberal Democratic Party Deputies Igor Lebedev and Yaroslav Nilov introduced a bill permitting the use of dashcam recordings in court as evidence.
Austria recently introduced a ban on using dashcams, with possible fines of 10,000 euros ($13,000) for first-time offenders.
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