Dashboard Cameras In Vehicles: Overview Of The Québec Privacy Regulator's Decision Relating To The Use Of Video Surveillance Cameras In Commercial Vehicles

The Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (the "CAI"), in a decision dated May 20, 2025, assessed the use of a video surveillance cameras installed by 13859380 Canada Inc., doing business as Crane Supply (the "Company"), across its commercial trucks.

Although the Company's video surveillance system allowed for the capture of video footage from both the exterior and interior of the vehicle cabin (the "Dashcam"), the CAI's decision focused more specifically on the in-cabin video capture.

In this bulletin, we provide an overview of the CAI's detailed assessment of the Company's obligations under the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (the "Québec Privacy Act") and its key findings.

1. Background

In or around February 2023, the Company installed Dashcams in all of its commercial trucks, allowing for continuous video capture of both the exterior and interior of the vehicles. The Dashcams recorded video footage from the moment the vehicle was turned on until twenty minutes after the engine was turned off. No audio was recorded, as sound recording and sound alerts had been deactivated.

In addition, the Company adopted the following policies and procedures governing the use of its Dashcams:

• Drivers were required to identify themselves using a personal identification code through their Company-issued mobile device, allowing the video footage to be linked to the driver in question.
• The Company adopted a Dashcam policy under which access to Dashcam footage was limited to specific individuals within the organization, namely the vice-president of operations, the regional director of operations, and the environment, health, and safety director.
• The Dashcam included an artificial intelligence feature allowing the system to trigger recordings when predetermined events occurred, including:
  • use of a mobile device while the vehicle was in motion;
  • failure to wear a seatbelt while the vehicle was in motion;
  • opening of the Dashcam housing;
  • obstruction of the Dashcam lens;
  • interruption of the Dashcam power source;
  • smoking inside the vehicle;
  • a potential collision;
  • unusual vehicle movement while stopped;
  • tailgating or proximity to another vehicle while in motion;
  • engine idling for more than 15 minutes; and
  • exceeding the speed limit by more than 20 km/h.
• The artificial intelligence feature allowed for the generation of daily incident reports sent to the Company's office managers, listing detected events, descriptions, device numbers, and the drivers involved. These reports did not include images or video footage.

Following a complaint, the CAI initiated an investigation into the Company's data collection and processing of personal information through Dashcams.

2. Application of the Québec Privacy Act

Before conducting its substantive analysis, the CAI determined that the Company was subject to the Québec Privacy Act and that the Dashcam footage constituted personal information within the meaning of the statute. Considering the Company was a corporation registered with the Registraire des entreprises du Québec, maintained a declared address in Montréal, and carried on business activities in Québec, the CAI found that it was subject to the Québec Privacy Act.

In addition, since the Company collected and processed video footage of individuals and used that footage to infer additional information about them through incident reports, the information collected and processed constituted personal information as defined in the Québec Privacy Act.

The CAI then substantively assessed whether the collection of in-cabin video footage met the necessity and proportionality requirements under the Québec Privacy Act.

3. The "Necessity" Criterion

Organizations subject to the Québec Privacy Act must demonstrate that the collection of personal information is necessary to achieve legitimate objectives. To satisfy this requirement, organizations must show that their objectives are legitimate, real, and important, regardless of whether consent has been obtained.

3.1. Legitimacy of the Objectives

To justify the in-cab video collection, the Company formulated the following objectives:

• ensuring the safety and security of its drivers and assets (including detection of in-cab smoking);
• preventing and detecting violations of the Highway Safety Code;
• defending the Company and its drivers in legal proceedings;
• investigating incidents or accidents; and
• improving driver training.

The CAI found that the objectives put forward by the Company were legitimate in the context of its business activities.

3.2. Real Nature of the Objectives

To demonstrate that its objectives were real in nature, the Company bore the burden of proving that each objective addressed concrete issues or problems actually faced by the organization, rather than hypothetical or speculative concerns.

The CAI noted that labour arbitrators have previously examined the use of video surveillance in company vehicles (including in BFI Canada¹, Linde², Sysco³, and Lafarge⁴) and applied a test focusing on whether the privacy intrusion was minimal and justified by reasonable and legitimate grounds, particularly safety considerations. The CAI examined both the nature of the cargo transported by the Company's vehicles and the safety characteristics applicable to heavy trucks and pickup trucks.

With respect to dangerous cargo, the CAI concluded that the Company had not demonstrated that the nature of the transported goods was central to its governance practices. The evidence did not establish the quantity of dangerous goods transported, the specific risks posed, or any incidents attributable to the nature of the cargo.

Regarding vehicle type, the CAI accepted that heavy trucks inherently pose higher risks to drivers and the public and are subject to heightened regulatory requirements. The evidence showed that accidents involving heavy trucks resulted in significant costs, supporting the Company's property-protection objective. For pickup trucks, the CAI found the evidence presented by the Company to be less persuasive. While the Company did not demonstrate that pickup trucks were proportionally involved in more accidents, the CAI nevertheless found that it is common knowledge that pickup trucks can cause serious or fatal accidents and therefore accepted the reality of the Company's safety objective in this respect.

Consequently, the CAI concluded that the Company's objectives were real in nature, given the documented history of incidents and accidents.

3.3. Importance of the Objectives

The CAI concluded that the Company's objectives were sufficiently important, given its commercial activities involving vehicles operating on public roads.

4. The "Proportionality" Criterion

To meet the proportionality requirement, organizations must demonstrate that:

• a rational link exists between the personal information collected and each of the objectives pursued;
• the privacy impact on the individuals is minimized; and
• the information collected is more beneficial to the organization than detrimental to the individuals concerned.

4.1. Rational Link

The CAI found a rational link between the in-cab footage and the Company's objectives. The footage enabled the detection of unsafe behaviours and contributed both preventively and retrospectively. From a preventive perspective, incident reports demonstrated month-over-month reductions in mobile device use and seatbelt non-compliance. From a retrospective perspective, the combined interior and exterior footage enabled more objective accident analysis, driver defence, and training. The CAI noted that its assessment was not intended to determine whether the Company was using the most effective approach to achieve its objectives, but rather whether the methods chosen were capable of achieving the identified objectives.

4.2. Minimization of Privacy Impact

Organizations must also ensure that the privacy impact on individuals is minimized. In this case, the CAI assessed the Company's employee training measures, Dashcam governance policies, and system settings.

With respect to the training measures implemented, the CAI noted that employee training represented the primary measure to ensure the safety of drivers and property, and that the Company did train its employees and promote good driving habits. However, despite these extensive training measures, the Company found that it was still unable to resolve its safety issues before resorting to technology involving the collection of personal information.

With respect to the governance policy, the Company adopted a dashboard camera policy stating that:

• the Dashcam would not be used to generally monitor or unduly observe employees' work; and
• the images captured would only be accessible to the vice-president of operations, the regional director of operations, and the environment, health, and safety director for the following purposes:
• assisting in accident investigations;
• minimizing security issues related to driver behaviour by generating alerts when infractions are committed;
• investigating cases of vandalism or damage to crane-equipped vehicles;
• handling automobile insurance claims;
• dealing with statements of offence disputes; and
• defending against a lawsuit or in the context of litigation, potential grievance, or disciplinary action.

Although the CAI was of the view that the Company's governance policy effectively established principles tending to minimize the impact of video surveillance, it found that the policy:

• allowed footage review for any incident or dispute, a broader scope than accidents or significant incidents; and
• permitted the use of footage in disciplinary or grievance contexts, contrary to the Company's representations before the CAI.

As a result, the CAI recommended that the policy be revised to limit access strictly to accidents or significant incidents.

With respect to the system settings, the CAI found that the Company did not provide credible evidence that it had considered less privacy-intrusive options, such as deploying an alternative system (for example, one triggered by G-force measurements) or configuring the existing system with less intrusive settings (for example, recording only seconds before and after a predetermined event rather than continuously).

The CAI also found that collecting video images for twenty minutes after the engine was turned off was unreasonable as the Company did not present convincing evidence that recording for twenty minutes after engine shut-off mitigated any specific risk or prevented particular incidents. In addition, drivers could also take breaks in their vehicles, resulting in recording while they were no longer on active duty. As a result, the CAI concluded that post shut-off recording was excessive and required the Company to change its settings so that recording occurred only while the engine was on.

4.3. Balance of Benefits and Harm

Despite finding deficiencies in privacy minimization allowing the CAI to conclude that the Company failed to comply with the Québec Privacy Act requirements, for the form, it proceeded anyway to assess whether the benefits to the Company outweighed the harm to its drivers. The CAI reiterated that employees operating commercial vehicles on public roads have a diminished expectation of privacy while performing their duties. That said, it emphasized that the interior of a vehicle cabin remains a space where employees retain a higher expectation of privacy (as it is small and fairly cramped space) than employees working in factories or in open or shared work environments.

Nonetheless, the CAI acknowledged that the Dashcam system generated tangible safety benefits. In particular, the evidence demonstrated that the system contributed to improved driving behaviours, including measurable reductions in mobile device use and seatbelt non-compliance. The CAI also recognized the value of in-cab footage in enabling more accurate reconstruction of incidents and accidents, supporting both driver training and the defence of the Company and its drivers in legal proceedings.

At the same time, the CAI noted that the scope and configuration of the in-cab recording heightened the privacy impact on individual drivers. Continuous recording inside the cabin, combined with recording periods extending beyond engine shut-off, increased the risk of capturing events unrelated to driving activity, including personal activities during breaks. These factors weighed against the Company in the proportionality assessment.

Ultimately, however, the CAI concluded that, notwithstanding these shortcomings, the benefits associated with the Dashcam system, particularly in terms of road safety and risk prevention, outweighed the harm to employees' privacy interests. This conclusion was reinforced by the Company's obligation under the Civil Code of Québec and the Occupational Health and Safety Act to take appropriate measures to protect the health, safety, and dignity of its employees. In the transportation context, such safety measures benefit not only organizations and their employees, but also the public at large.

5. Conclusion

In this case, the CAI concluded that although the Company's objectives were legitimate, real, and important, and although in-cab video capture was rationally linked to those objectives and generated benefits outweighing the privacy harm, the Company failed to adequately minimize the privacy impact on its employees. As a result, the specific deployment of the Dashcam and its system parameters did not satisfy the necessity and proportionality requirements under the Québec Privacy Act.

Accordingly, the CAI ordered the Company to:

• limit in-cab image collection to a short sequence of seconds before and after a specific incident, or otherwise cease in-cab recording altogether;
• cease recording after engine shut-off;
• revise its Dashcam policy to restrict access and use to accidents or significant incidents only; and
• destroy any in-cab recordings exceeding the permitted scope.

In short, the CAI did not prohibit the use of in-cab cameras. Rather, it reaffirmed that video surveillance in the workplace remains permissible, but only where organizations rigorously tailor their technical settings, policies, and governance frameworks to minimize privacy impacts while achieving clearly justified objectives.

Footnotes

1 BFI Canada Inc. v. Teamsters, Local Union No. 213, labour arbitration award dated June 11, 2012.

2 Teamsters Québec, Local Union No. 106 v. Linde Canada Ltée, 2014 QCTA 943.

3 Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses de Sysco-Québec (CSN) v. Sysco Services alimentaires du Québec, 2016, QCTA 455.

4 Lafarge Canada Inc. v. Teamsters, Local Union No. 7625, labour arbitration award dated May 24, 2018.

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