The Panhellenic Federation of Professional Taxi Owner-Drivers, POEIATA, has asked for a law on cameras inside taxis. Efimerida ton Syntakton published the letter on 14 October. It is addressed to Giorgos Kotsiras, deputy minister of infrastructure and transport, and copied to the ministries of citizen protection and justice and to the Hellenic Data Protection Authority.
The federation says drivers carry strangers at all hours, often at night, and that assaults, threats, robberies, intimidation and damage to vehicles are not a matter for each driver to handle alone. It wants a clear legal framework, in line with Greek and European data-protection law, so that video can be recorded inside every taxi. The only purpose would be to prevent and deal with incidents that threaten the driver and, where it arises, the passenger.
What the law would have to say
The letter asks for a clause that would allow a suitable camera in every taxi, or make one mandatory, as the law itself would decide. Recording would be only for preventing and investigating serious incidents, such as assaults, threats, robberies and other offences, and for protecting life and physical safety.
Passengers would have to be told, and the cab would have to carry a sign. Only the data that were necessary could be recorded. Footage would be deleted automatically after a set and reasonable period, unless an incident meant that clip had to be kept lawfully.
Who may see the footage would be tightly defined. It would be passed to the prosecuting and judicial authorities only when needed for a particular incident. The law would have to block unauthorised access, copying, alteration and publication. Commercial use, posting the footage in public, and watching a driver through the working day for no safety reason would be banned.
If fitting the cameras were made compulsory, the federation wants the technical standard, the reasonable cost, a transition period and financial help to be considered. It has asked the ministry to look at the request at once, to start drafting, to call a working meeting, and to reply in writing.
The letter says the federation is not asking for special treatment. It says people who work on the road every day should have a legal means of protection, and a right to get home safe. The reports do not include a reply.