[kvsneela]

During the first journey after dashcam installation , audio recording was on ( went for a local function with wife and family friends). During the journey , there was an argument in the car and afterwards I wanted to know how the argument started. Then I remembered the dashcam could record the audio and so downloaded the clip and checked. The argument was crystal clear. After knowing this ( that dashcam can record audio ), wife wanted it to be removed as during our trip we used to have fights which might be verbal which might be recorded. So now audio is off.

[lsjey]

I always have the audio ON in dashcam. While there are privacy concerns, I know that only last 5 hours or so of audio will ever be in the dash cam, because of loop recording. I also warn users that audio is being recorded at the beginning of the journey.

And don't forget that some gems of conversations will get captured, which can be saved for posterity

[Kln]

Always on, especially when given for service. Maruti workshop once tried to act smart and disabled the audio. The next time they detached the camera altogether. The third time I cellotaped the entire power connections manually. I could listen to them commenting sarcastically about me, the owner of the car, before giving up meddling with it. It puts them on high alert as far as servicing your car is concerned.


Another reason to have it always on is if someone threatens you out of road rage - you have solid proof and can go for legal remedies in a stronger fashion.

[harishhm74]

I have left it on for reasons that it will be helpful to get specific contexts, noises and also in case of any on potential road altercations.
I am aware of privacy but majority of times who is in my car are those from family or known persons (example colleagues who occasionally join in case of joint official trips) and normally nobody else drives my car.
However, what i was not doing was removing the recordings before it goes to service center etc - which I should probably do henceforth to ensure it doesn't fall into wrong hands.
Normally I don't review the videos unless i am checking for any specific event that might have happened and requires some action. Else it is just gets erased on loop.

Maybe I would try to find and put a sticker that conveys that recording is in place.

On a lighter side, there was one occasion when I had a driver for my office trip, I was checking for specific event and accidentally came across a chit-chat amongst the drivers while they were parked at office and discussing driver salaries and how they plan to ask for raises :-)

[Wanderers]

I think the benefit far outweighs the privacy concerns. Firstly by default the audio/video get overwritten repeatedly so unless you download or save something, it’s s not going to remain there. Also the dash cam software or even normal video gallery option allows you to mute the sound and save the video without sound.

Most of the footages from my dashcam have only music captured from car. If I decide to upload, the soundtrack needs to be changed due to copyright.
Also Neither I am prime minister nor a business tycoon who would be discussing sensitive and confidential stuff. Most of the time its a usual family conversation or a office conversation when travelling with colleagues once a while and above all our intensions are good.

However those who voice privacy concern, please note that camera microphones are tested and designed to captured sound from outside and at quite a distance and in review they do test the sound recording capability and I find that they are pretty sharp. So yes you should mute it.

[GeeTee TSI]

Voted no, because I embarrass myself in the heat of the moment cursing the willful offender as well as the blissfully unaware one

[Dry Ice]

I have left it ON. I rarely review any footage except occasionally to check everything is working as it should. On loop recording, the card only retains about last 2 hrs worth of footage. If someone else wants to use my car (very rare occurrence), I make sure to highlight it to them that the audio is being recorded. If they want, I can disable it. So far, nobody has asked me to.

Also, it’s a trivial matter to mute a clip on your laptop.

It’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

[speed79]

The dashcam in my Storme had Audio enabled by default. I had no issues with audio being recorded as no one other than family members had access to inside of the car. I think someday by mistake, I switched the audio recording off. Then I had the accident of my Storme (totaled) on way to Hyderabad, and the whole accident was recorded on my dashcam. I had rear-ended a truck. I could make out the whole sequence of events but I am still clueless about the cause of accident - whether I slept at wheels or was talking to my wife on an almost empty highway at 7:00 AM in the morning. My wife's brain did not record about 10-15 minutes of events after the accident, and I am not sure about myself but I remember more events (my wife awake and saying something, my son dialling up my friends and relatives), but don't remember seeing the truck that I had rear ended. How I wished that the audio recording had not been disabled by mistake, it would have helped me a bit to understand the cause.

[RijuC]

Voted: Yes, I am aware of the privacy aspects, but it not concerning for me; primarily due to the following reasons:

1. Nobody else touches the interiors or access the dashcam contents except me.
2. The old recordings get erased in FIFO mode.
3. Usually I do not discuss secrets or intense family matters or office works related sensitive information or cost information while driving,
4. Recordings of outside incidents, altercation, arguments, cops interaction etc are important,
5. Any pre-event and post-event audio recordings are important,
6. I faced few incidents or arguments and when I say all are getting video and audio recorded, the other party takes a peaceful exit.

However, there were few awkward moments when some curse words got recorded. I felt ashamed when I downloaded the video clips and play it on mobile or TV for travel memories or to analyse the issue.

[dipdawiz]

It is by default ON in 70mai. Kept it that way. I rarely get call and more rare that it would be of any significant privacy issue. Never used this audio to figure out anything I (or others) spoke about with anyone of other passengers. And so far in 12 years of car ownership, never given my car to drive to others, except service/valet guys. In service I remove the card anyway, to put a smaller sd card. So access to the card is mostly restricted to me, and all the discussion I do with family or friends behind others back are not of that extent to hurt someone .

In current setup unless spoken little louder, voice is not clear in the recording, if music is playing; thanks to dashboard center speaker. Though it captures clicking sound of indicator just fine. Also as others said, I also normally do not take copy so they get overwritten. For those cases I take a copy, I replace the audio anyway.

Saying so, I would really like to have a single click button to mute/unmute in 70mai dual channel dashcams. Like I had in Transcend. This is just for those rare occasions when I am actually concerned about privacy and want to mute any audio recording.

[MaheshY1]

Voted: No - Anything we say in an adrenaline-fueled moment can always come back to bite us.

I don't have a dashcam yet but I'd never want one with cabin camera either. I have thought about adding a dashcam on a few occasions, but I always concluded that it's not worth it.

Let's say I get in a crash and the video becomes evidence. there's a good chance that I won't have the permission to give only the clip relevant to the crash. And if I do that, then removing all other clips could be seen as tampering with evidence.

If I have a crash, then the other party could scan through the older clips and pull out any close calls to use as evidence to prove that I'm normally a rash driver. Nobody knows the legal definition of rash or dangerous driving. I don't know how the other lawyer or a bad cop could use their ambiguous definition of "rash driving" to instead bring charges against me. The good thing is, I don't even want to find that out what they can do with my dashcam footage. If they can find the crash footage from a nearby CCTV, then I'm good with that.

My paranoia goes beyond just dashcam audio and video. I have even removed mic access for Google voice commands on a stock Android phone. I turn on location only when I absolutely have to. Uber/Ola, GPay, and maps are the only apps with location access on my phone and I make sure I delete Uber/Ola if I don't foresee the need for booking a cab. The fact that iPhones can, at any time, scan your face without even letting you know spooks me big time. Even if I get an iPhone for free, I'd stick a piece of duct tape over the "face ID" sensor. Thankfully, there are cheap stock Android phones in the market, which meet my needs much better than a 1 lakh rupee iPhone.

[kapilsharma80]

Voted for ‘ Yes - The benefits outweigh any privacy concerns’.

The primary requirement of installing a dash-cam is to have an evidence in case of an unfortunate event. Audio evidence/recording can further safeguard the owner’s interest if the videos are not clear.

Sometimes dash-cams are not able to record the video due to restricted angles, example: a conversation with a cop at a check post while sitting on driver’s seat can only be captured through audio.

Dash-cams should be treated like cockpit Blackbox… keeping privacy concerns aside.

By the way, we all use phones & internet and we all know how well protected our privacy is on these platforms and devices.

[nishsingh]

Having the audio recording on has also allowed me to contradict idiots who said I hadn't turned on my turn indicators. The indicator sound is pretty clearly recorded on these dashcams.

[karavadi143]

Voted as No

Out of the box Dashcam came with the audio recording enabled and was left as is for the initial months, as I was the only one driving the car to work.

However, while randomly playing the videos from a scenic trip with friends, I realized the audio that gets captured was not aligning to the privacy concerns. Hence disabled it

[sumeethaldankar]

I have voted for the privacy option but my main reason for having the audio off is that it will consume more space and have lesser hours of re-cording. Plus when you have to copy files especially via wifi the video clip with an audio recording will take longer to download on the mobile due to the size.