Speed camera alerts in navigation apps: what is legal in Spain, France, Germany and Switzerland

Warner, detector, jammer: three different things

Spain's traffic authority, the DGT, draws the distinction clearly, and it is useful everywhere. A warner is a sat-nav or an app with a database of fixed camera locations that tells you when one is near; it does not sense anything. A detector picks up the signal of a speed camera nearby. A jammer interferes with the camera so that it cannot measure.

Detectors are illegal in all four countries covered here, and jammers are treated at least as harshly. The arguments are almost always about warners, which is what Waze, Google Maps and most sat-navs are: they show cameras that are on a map or that other drivers have reported. Whether that is allowed depends on the country, and the rule applies to you as the driver, whatever the app shows by default.

Spain: warnings allowed, detectors and jammers not

In Spain, the DGT says warners that work from a regularly updated database are legal, and it publishes the locations of its fixed cameras itself, so an app announcing them is simply repeating public information. What is banned is detection and interference. In the DGT's points table, driving a vehicle fitted with a radar detection device costs 3 points and a 200 euro fine.

Jammers are treated more severely. The DGT states that carrying radar jammers in a vehicle is prohibited whether they are connected or not, because they interfere with traffic enforcement systems. For a visitor in a rental car, the practical reading is simple: Waze or Google Maps announcing a fixed camera is fine, and nothing that senses or blocks radar should be in the car.

France: danger zones, not camera locations

France's Highway Code, in article R413-15, punishes owning, carrying or using any device designed to detect speed enforcement equipment or to help evade it, with a fifth-class fine, the loss of six licence points and seizure of the device. The same article extends the rule to devices that warn drivers of where enforcement equipment is located.

That is why apps and sat-navs in France do not announce cameras as such. After being brought into line with the rules, they became driving aids that flag danger zones along the route, according to the French road safety authority. There is a second layer: under article L130-11, the authorities can order navigation services to stop relaying user reports near certain police checks, such as alcohol and drug tests, for up to two hours, and up to twelve for other checks, within 10 km outside towns or 2 km inside them. If the map shows no police reports near a checkpoint, that may be why.

Germany: the function must be off

Germany's road traffic regulations, the StVO, say in section 23 that a driver must not operate, or carry ready for use, a technical device intended to show or interfere with traffic enforcement measures, which explicitly includes radar warning and laser jamming devices. For devices that have other uses, such as a phone or a sat-nav, the rule is that the warning function itself must not be used.

The German motoring club ADAC sums it up as a ban on any automated warning of speed cameras, and adds that using a speed camera app is also prohibited when it runs on a passenger's phone. In practice, that means switching the camera alerts off in every app in the car before you drive in Germany, not just on the driver's phone.

Switzerland: the strictest of the four

Switzerland's customs authority says it is prohibited to import, advertise, sell or supply radar detectors, and also to install them in vehicles, carry them or use them in any way. Customs provisionally confiscates any it finds at the border and hands them to the canton, which usually orders them destroyed and imposes a fine.

The ban is not limited to dedicated boxes. ADAC's country table lists navigation devices that can warn of speed checks as an extra function among the prohibited items in Switzerland. The safe approach is to arrive with camera alerts already switched off in every app and device. If you are crossing from France, Germany or Italy, do it before the border rather than at the first rest area, and see our Switzerland guide for the data side of the trip.

Switching the alerts off in the apps

• Waze: menu, Settings, Alerts and reports, Reports, Cameras, then choose each camera type and turn off Show on map and Alert while driving.
• Google Maps on Android: Settings, Navigation, then under Alert options turn off the alerts for reported incidents. This silences all incident alerts, not only cameras.
• Car sat-nav: look for speed camera or POI warnings in the settings, and turn them off before Germany or Switzerland.

Waze says its camera alerts are on by default and that cameras come from reports by its partners and map editors, so a camera nobody reported will not appear. Google lists a mobile speed camera report type and notes that some incidents can only be reported in certain countries. Neither app knows which country's rule you have to follow, so the switch is your job. Our road trip guide covers keeping the maps online across borders.