diff --git a/src/libcamera/pipeline/rpi/common/pipeline_base.cpp b/src/libcamera/pipeline/rpi/common/pipeline_base.cpp
index d662c8f12145..9a2b8b90d5af 100644
--- a/src/libcamera/pipeline/rpi/common/pipeline_base.cpp
+++ b/src/libcamera/pipeline/rpi/common/pipeline_base.cpp
@@ -527,6 +527,18 @@ int PipelineHandlerBase::configure(Camera *camera, CameraConfiguration *config)
 	if (ret)
 		return ret;
 
+	/*
+	 * Configure embedded data on the sensor. Only check for errors when
+	 * enabling embedded data, as some sensors don't support disabling it,
+	 * and Unicam will simply drop the embedded data packets if we don't
+	 * capture them.
+	 */
+	ret = data->sensor_->setEmbeddedDataEnabled(data->sensorMetadata_);
+	if (ret && data->sensorMetadata_) {
+		LOG(RPI, Error) << "Unable to enable embedded data: " << ret;
+		return ret;
+	}
+
 	/*
 	 * Platform specific internal stream configuration. This also assigns
 	 * external streams which get configured below.