Is it allowed to film and photograph traffic police?

Recently, a fanpage posted a candid photo of a rather pretty traffic policewoman while she was on duty. The photo immediately received many likes and quite interesting comments. However, the photo caused numerous troubles for this beautiful policewoman due to inappropriate and uncultured criticisms, which pressured the individual in the photo to lock her personal page.

In reality, social networks, in addition to their positive aspects, can also be quite dangerous when encountering netizens who enjoy "searching for faults" to create matters to discuss.

The above incident raises another issue: Is taking candid photos or videos of traffic police officers illegal?

Previously, the Traffic Police Department issued Official Dispatch 1042/C67-P3 regulating the filming and photographing of traffic police officers. However, it was abolished as it was considered to have several wrong signs and exceeded the authority (according to the Department of Examination of Legal Documents under the Ministry of Justice).

On the other hand, according to Article 5 of the Law on People’s Police 2014, citizens have the duty to supervise the activities of the People’s Police.

Thus, it can be said that filming and photographing are methods by which citizens supervise traffic police.

Currently, there is no regulation prohibiting people from filming or photographing traffic police officers while they are on duty, except for cases related to state secrets, security areas, and national defense as regulated in Article 18 of the Decree 167/2013/ND-CP.

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