The Belgian public railway company NMBS/SNCB will now make its camera footage directly available to police officers. This will enable the police to monitor what is happening in stations and station areas in real-time.
Until now, police services could only request the images after the fact, for example, after an incident had occurred. Almost 130 local police zones will have access to the footage. In total, images from approximately 8,000 cameras in and around stations will be shared.
In general, the majority of travelers feel safe in Belgian stations. However, in the neighborhoods of the busiest stations, such as Brussels-South, for example, there is still pressure on the sense of security and livability.
Strict legal framework for data protection and privacy
Mayors and the railway company itself had been requesting for some time that the police be able to view the images in real-time. This would enable police services to respond more quickly to nuisance or criminal acts in stations. A cooperation agreement concluded between the federal government and NMBS/SNCB now makes this possible.
“We take a lot of security measures ourselves, but the problems we face in stations are often of a social nature,” says NMBS/SNCB spokesperson Dimitri Temmerman. “As a train company, we don’t have the resources or the authority to tackle these problems on our own. We need the help of all our partners, including the police.”
“We have established a strict legal framework for data protection and privacy,” says Minister of the Interior Bernard Quintin (MR). “Thanks to the real-time images, action can be taken more quickly if, for example, a theft or a fight occurs in a station. The goal is to reduce crime, and this is a crucial step in that direction.”
8,000 cameras
In total, images from approximately 8,000 cameras in and around stations are shared. These are all cameras located in public places, such as station halls, waiting rooms, platforms, bicycle parking facilities, and car parks.
The nearly 130 local police zones that have access to the images have at least one train station in their territory: they can view the photos from stations in their own territory.
NMBS/SNCB has 555 train stations, including 20 large stations, 80 medium-sized stations, and 455 smaller stations. This equates to an average of approximately 14 cameras per station, although for an average station in a medium-sized city, you can expect to find 30 to 60 cameras.
The images from these cameras will also be directly accessible to several federal police services, including emergency centers, aviation police, and the federal judicial police. Securail, the NMBS/SNCB security service, and the federal railway police were already able to view the images in real time.
The approximately 7,000 cameras that NMBS/SNCB manages in the trains themselves are not covered by the new agreement. According to the railway company, sharing these images directly is “not on the agenda” today, but according to the Quintin cabinet, this could become possible in the future.
Most incidents in Brussels
According to research conducted by VRT in June 2023, 90% of travelers feel safe in the stations, 88% in the parking lot, and 94% on the train.
Brussels-South, Brussels-North, and Brussels-Central stations record the highest number of criminal offenses of all Belgian train stations. In the first quarter of last year, 2,425 criminal crimes were recorded at these three stations, the largest in the country, compared to 1,850 in the whole of Flanders.
