Reports in the British press have highlighted statements from a driving expert, Tim Rodie from Motorpoint, who has stated that: “When driving in Portugal, Luxembourg and Austria, it's not permitted to operate a dashcam as they're deemed as an invasion of privacy and carry hefty fines."

According to the National Data Protection Commission, the use dash cam equipment is prohibited, taking into account art. 19 of the national law (law no. 58/2019, of August 8) which implements the General Data Protection Regulation in Portugal: "cameras may not be located: a) on public roads, neighbouring properties or other places that are not the exclusive domain of the person responsible, except where strictly necessary to cover access to the property".

Portugal, together with Austria and Luxembourg, are among the countries where the capture of images using these devices is prohibited, unlike countries such as France, Belgium, Germany, Norway or Switzerland, where their use is permitted under certain conditions and, in contrast with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Serbia, Spain and Sweden, where their use is permitted without any conditions, according to a report by Dinheiro Vivo.

The right to image is part of the "catalogue" of rights and freedoms of every citizen. Article 79 of the Civil Code states precisely that no one may reproduce, exhibit or release for commercial use the portrait of another person without their consent. However, the same article refers to the lack of need for consent when the reproduction of the image is framed within public places or facts of public interest that have occurred publicly.

Criminal law provides in article 199 for a prison sentence or fine in cases of recording and using images, without consent, of words not intended for the public or capturing and using photographs or filming of a person, even at events in which they participated. However, Portuguese courts have unanimously assessed the value of images captured by private individuals on public roads using video surveillance cameras as evidence of a criminal offence, based on a case-by-case analysis, safeguarding the core of a person's private life and the processing of which does not involve so-called sensitive data.