Can Traffic Police Use Personal Phones to Photograph Violators for Penalties?

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According to the provisions of Article 64 of the 2012 Law on Handling Administrative Violations regarding the use of technical and professional equipment in detecting administrative violations, the authority and individuals empowered to sanction administrative violations are permitted to use such equipment to detect administrative violations concerning order, traffic safety, and environmental protection. However, the management, use, and listing of technical and professional equipment must comply with the following principles:

- Respect for the freedom, honor, dignity, and private life of citizens, along with other legitimate rights and interests of individuals and organizations;

- Adherence to the correct procedure and rules regarding the use of technical and professional equipment;

- Results collected using technical and professional equipment must be recorded in writing and used solely for sanctioning administrative violations;

- Technical and professional equipment must comply with the standards and technical regulations set by competent authorities.

According to Clause 3, Article 6 of Circular 01/2016/TT-BCA, communication devices include: walkie-talkies, telephones, fax machines, and data transmission computers.

Simultaneously, Clause 2, Article 79 of Decree 46/2016/ND-CP stipulates that audio and video recording devices must be inspected, calibrated, and tested according to the law before being put into use; the standards and technical regulations must be maintained throughout their use and between inspection, calibration, and testing periods.

Clause 3, Article 7 of Circular 06/2017/TT-BGTVT also specifically stipulates that image recording equipment, when capturing real-time images, must ensure that the images display the date, month, year, hour, minute, second, and location of the photo. If the recording device does not have the functionality to determine the location, the image recording result confirmation form must specify the location of the recording.

According to these provisions, it can be seen that the use of personal phones by traffic police to capture photos of violators as a basis for imposing administrative sanctions is not compliant with the law.

Moreover, as stipulated in Clause 6, Article 3 of Decree 165/2013/ND-CP, one of the prohibited acts is the use of technical and professional equipment that does not comply with the standards and technical regulations prescribed or has not been inspected, calibrated, or tested according to the applicable legal provisions.

Nguyen Trinh

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