Hong Kong will consult the taxi industry as to whether surveillance and dash cameras will be made mandatory in their vehicles.
Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung was responding in writing to a legislative question on Wednesday from lawmaker Luk Chung-hung.
“[S]ome members advised that the Government should consider mandating the installation of a central cloud-based camera system in all taxi compartments, so as to facilitate the retrieval of relevant video files by law enforcement authorities as objective corroborative evidence to protect the interests of both drivers and passengers in case of disputes, and help improve the driving safety of taxis,” Lam said, adding that the trade will be consulted within the year.
Legislative Councillors Junius Ho and Ben Chan said more cameras would protect the interests of passengers, according to RTHK, whilst lawmaker Michael Lu said the city should follow examples in China, Australia and New Zealand.
Luk said the government supported the use of cameras: “If taxi owners or companies install and use cameras, safety monitoring devices and dash cameras in their taxis, and provide full records to insurers when making insurance claims, this may facilitate insurers’ risk differentiation for making underwriting decisions and setting premium levels for individual policies more accurately.”
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