(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-04 20:52

Liu Pingan, head of Jiwei Law Office in Shaanxi, said taxis were not a complete public venue and there was often a certain degree of intimate relationship between passengers, whose words and deeds were different from what they did in buses.

The installation of cameras in taxis may infringe the privacy of passengers, Liu said.

Thus, passengers should be informed of the cameras and police should ensure that visual data is kept secret to protect passengers' privacy, suggested the lawyer.

In Shenyang, capital city of north-eastern Liaoning Province, about 10,000 taxis have been equipped with the GPS devices. Shenyang is the first city on the Chinese mainland to have launched large-scale installations.

"If the situation in the taxis is normal, pictures of passengers will be automatically deleted. Only when drivers have alerted police will photos be preserved by the system," said Yan Bin, an official of Shenyang Communications Bureau.

In other Chinese cities such as Chengdu in Sichuan and Zhongshan in southern Guangdong, taxi managers are also planning to install cameras in taxis.

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