Proposition 53K2345

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 21 mars 2007 réglant l'installation et l'utilisation de caméras de surveillance en vue de renforcer la sécurité dans les transports en commun et les sites nucléaires.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

July 6, 2012

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

security services nuclear power station means of public conveyance public safety police video surveillance

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

July 18, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, I will take the floor of my bank.

This project can and should be read and understood in connection with the previous project.

We are obviously in favor of this text, which will allow the police to act faster and more preventively.

It will also facilitate legal proceedings by accelerating the acquisition of evidence.

It is also very important that police can quickly and easily access video surveillance images of public transport sites. This is about the safety of the locations and the vicinity of these sites.

For nuclear sites, the same type of reasoning can be adopted, but it is important that real-time, free and free access to camera images installed on the network of public transport companies and on nuclear sites is marked within the strict and defined framework of administrative and judicial police missions.

Therefore, the viewing and use of these images must be done in strict compliance with the law on the protection of privacy.

Unfortunately, in the recent past, we have been confronted with forms of heavy aggression in public transport. Our party therefore supports a policy that provides security services with more resources to respond to the growing crime phenomena.

We have repeatedly stated that the police cannot be everywhere. The police themselves have long been asking for free and free access to the images of the surveillance cameras of the public transport companies. The ability to view these images in real time means double profit.

The upcoming royal decrees are at least as important as the law amendment we will approve today. These will determine who exactly can view the images and under what conditions. For CD&V it is of great importance that this is done in accordance with the principles of the camera legislation of 2007, which guarantee the monitoring of privacy.

The use of camera images by the police should also be somewhat nuanced. Mr Somers pointed out this in the committee. The vision of a camera provides a sense of security, but it is not sanctifying and absolutely not closing. Therefore, the deployment and the kordate and the rapid presence of sufficient police personnel remains very important.

This measure came following a number of cases of severe aggression on the public transport network. In addition, there is also the phenomenon of border crime that in recent months on the French-Flemish border in South-West Flanders. This phenomenon has not yet been confirmed. Therefore, I took the opportunity in the committee to go further and through legislative amendments to allow police officers to view in real time the images of private surveillance cameras, which are cameras at gas stations, along roads and motorways.

We must make the existing cameras, whether installed by governments or municipalities, or by gas stations or private companies, smarter, so that they can detect the number plates of suspected or stolen cars and thus expose the escape routes of French gangs. This would optimize the fight against border crime.

I hope that this legislative amendment is not the end point, but a mid-step towards a more efficient fight against border crime and crime in general.

Mr. Speaker, the MR group is pleased to support this bill.

We do not ignore that the police services have long demanded free and direct access to the images of surveillance cameras of public transport companies in order to enhance the effectiveness of their missions and thereby increase transport safety, on the one hand, and the resolution of judicial investigations, on the other.

Of course, as mentioned in the committee, a number of questions still arise regarding the modalities of this form of surveillance, the privileges of access to images, the duration of their storage, the impact of the control of images on the police capacity, the choice of the infrastructure to be monitored, the distribution of costs.

It is therefore essential that the answers to these questions meet the approval of the Privacy Protection Commission. The practical terms and conditions of this free access to images by police services will be determined in a royal decree. We are looking forward to it and will be attentive to the provisions it will contain.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, I think this is a good, necessary bill. I think it will also be approved by Chamberbreed. It can only improve the safety of citizens. It will allow police access to the camera network of public transport. I think this is a very good thing.

I would like to intervene because I think there is a more fundamental debate here. The CD&V colleague has already mentioned this. I also speak from the experience of a mayor who has a lot of cameras in his territory.

The essential debate we will ⁇ have in the coming months is about what we are going to do now with all those cameras.

Today we have a very good and solid privacy legislation in our country. Such legislation should also take into account the technical developments in the field. I think there is a technological revolution in the field of cameras, whether or not it is possible with cameras.

If we continue to use classic cameras, the question arises what efficiency gains we really get. The cameras are in the public domain, but in order to function properly they must be permanently controlled and manipulated. We need a lot of people to do this efficiently.

So people get out of the street to place them behind a video wall, to look at cameras to keep an eye on the public domain.

Therefore, in the debate, which is not just a toog debate but a debate about reality, the question arises whether we should not better put people on the streets and not use those cameras.

To ⁇ real efficiency gains and go beyond just creating a sense of safety and the deterrent effect that cameras have – I also believe in that – one must use smart technology. Therefore, smart cameras will need to be installed: cameras that respond to movement, that can detect certain patterns of movement and set an alarm on them, cameras that can do face recognition.

The question in that fundamental debate is how far one wants to go with this technology. After all, there is unlikely much possible today with this technology. Many things can be solved and prevented. However, the more tools one uses, the further one goes on that technological path, the more intrusive the question becomes: what about privacy? This is a tension field.

I think it is a very good thing that today we are paving the way for the police to use those cameras. I’ve been told that there are thousands of cameras in our country. If we want to use them efficiently, we will have to key to the technology. We will have to ask ourselves how far we will go in that.

Personally, I am very open about this. I think there can be a very interesting privacy debate. In all honesty, I have much more fear for my privacy when I see all the smartphones with cameras, than the smart cameras used by the police, which are very strongly embedded in a privacy legislation, which can only be used by police officers, whose images can only be stored for a month and then deleted. There are many more legislative security measures regarding privacy for those police cameras than for many other cameras that exist today in our society. This is a very interesting and important debate.

I hope that with the Chamber and in the committee we can really exchange thoughts on this in the coming months, in the coming year. I think cameras are a necessary tool for the police, but that tool is only effective if we make them intelligent, smart.

I am very pleased with the present bill. Let this be a step forward to conduct the more fundamental debate in the committee in the coming months and years, together with you, Mrs. Minister.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I will not make an extra lengthy explanation of this, because for that, the proposed bills are too obvious. They are also supported by a House-wide majority.

The previous draft concerns the security of the places where public transport passes and where the safety perimeter is extended. The current draft is about the placement of surveillance cameras to strengthen safety in public transport and at nuclear sites. Who can be against it? No one .

Mrs. Minister, if those measures are efficient and indeed provide for an increase in security, then the Flemish Interest can only support those measures.

It’s time for something to happen in and around public transport. The number of incidents, including fatalities, is increasing hand in hand. You have confirmed this to me by means of numerical material. The number of theft in public transportation is no longer to be tracked. Fighting parties and battle parties continue to increase. I mentioned, for example, the stake of a few days ago in the premetrostation Lemonnier, as you know.

Colleague Somers, we also know, of course, that the proposed measures, such as camera surveillance and the like, will not exclude attacks or violent incidents; for this, indeed, the police are needed. I would like to reiterate the demand of the Flemish Belang that more police should come on the streets. This can effectively do something to eliminate the uncertainty of citizens.

These are positive measures, Mrs. Minister, but they are insufficient to dampen problems such as violence and distress. We are talking about violence in public transportation. As we have already said in the committee, we are the requesting party for dog brigades in the areas of public transport. That would be a good measure to boost the sense of security. But well, that is not the subject of this design, and you say it will be discussed later.

We will not reject these two small measures, we will approve both draft laws. I would like to warn you that your timing is unclear and illogical. I have already said this in the committee. I really do not understand exactly what you are doing. Two months ago, you announced your National Security Plan. Hearing was held and extensive presentations were accompanied. In these presentations, several times the need for a thorough debate on the core tasks of the police has been advocated. We are sure to find such a debate. We have been in this position longer than today.

However, shortly after the announcement of your National Security Plan, you started a debate, again with hearings, on the possibility of having private surveillance firms perform some police tasks in the future. There is no objection, especially on the Flemish side. This debate also immediately stopped, without any legislative proposals or bills being submitted to the committee. So I ask, Mrs. Minister, do you get enough support from the majority to hold such debates?

These two minimum bills are now on the table. Wouldn’t it have been better to first regulate the broad framework, namely the core tasks of the police, to first close that and pour the political conclusions into a legal framework? Wouldn’t it have been better to deepen and close the debate on the private surveillance firms as well and to come to Parliament with the political conclusions, with full-fledged bills? Wouldn’t it have been better to do so rather than come up with these two small bills, which, however useful, contain only peripheral security measures?

Mrs. Minister, our political group wants to warn of this course of affairs, where fundamental debates are not closed, do not lead to political conclusions, while one comes to Parliament with bills that do not affect the essential and fundamental debate.

We wonder when we will get the fundamental debate about the core tasks of the police. When will we conduct the fundamental debate about the possible transfer of police duties to private surveillance services? When will we start this fundamental debate? When will this debate end with political conclusions?

We will approve this bill, but let this be a warning. Where is your timing?

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the members of the committee for the excellent collaboration throughout this beginning of the year. The Royal Decree shall be taken with all necessary precautions and shall be submitted to the opinion of the Privacy Protection Commission. I will have no objection to present it to you and to discuss it at the entrance.

I agree with Mr. Somers’ comments on smart cameras and our need for new technology and good and modern investment. This is also a debate. It also covers the core tasks, for example by determining who will do the visioning.

We will, as agreed, conduct a debate in the committee and in the government in the autumn. I have already submitted an extensive note with interesting proposals to the government.

We will conduct this debate in the autumn. History is made step by step, not at once.