diff --git a/src/libcamera/ipa_interface.cpp b/src/libcamera/ipa_interface.cpp
index ee3e3622f39ae85f..5ca8000a253f5435 100644
--- a/src/libcamera/ipa_interface.cpp
+++ b/src/libcamera/ipa_interface.cpp
@@ -258,6 +258,11 @@
  * \param[in] buffers The buffers to map
  * \param[in] num_buffers The number of entries in the \a buffers array
  *
+ * The dmabuf file descriptors provided in \a buffers are borrowed from the
+ * caller and are only guaranteed to be valid during the map_buffers() call.
+ * Should the callee need to store a copy of the file descriptors, it shall
+ * duplicate them first with ::dup().
+ *
  * \sa libcamera::IPAInterface::mapBuffers()
  */