Proposition 55K0412

Projet de loi visant à flouter les images d'établissements nucléaires et sensibles et à limiter la prise ou la diffusion de photographies aériennes de ces établissements dans l'intérêt de la sécurité publique.

General information ¶

Authors

PS | SP Hugues Bayet, Ludivine Dedonder, Emir Kir, Ahmed Laaouej, Hervé Rigot, Daniel Senesael, Éric Thiébaut

Submission date

Sept. 23, 2019

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

audiovisual equipment defence policy data protection nuclear power station nuclear safety public safety satellite communications

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI N-VA LDD MR PVDA | PTB VB

Abstained from voting

Open Vld

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 12, 2020 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, two years ago we received in the House a report from Greenpeace that considered all possibilities of a terrorist attack on our nuclear sites. In this report, it was found that we only considered attacks using information passed in the public domain. Then, again in 2018, we had the visit of a delegation of the French National Assembly, which had denounced the lack of security of our nuclear sites.

Both the Greenpeace report and the French commission denounced the fact that it was possible to have access on Google to all possible details about our nuclear power plants. If you go to Google Earth, you can see in detail the Doel nuclear power plant and the Tihange nuclear power plant. On the other hand, for France, you will find that the Chooz plant is flooded on Google Earth.

At the time, we had asked Interior Minister Jambon to ask Google to blur these images for more security. And Google refused, arguing that in France a legal provision obliged them to float images of sensitive nuclear sites. Our group subsequently submitted a bill to compel satellite image providers to blur images of nuclear power plants.

This proposal was submitted during the previous legislature. Elections took place; we again filed this text that followed the legislative path. An opinion was requested from the State Council, which issued comments that were incorporated into the work of the Interior Committee. I would also like to thank my colleagues in this committee for working very collegially on this bill, and in particular my colleague from the N-VA Ms. Ingels, who drafted an amendment to enrich the proposal. Indeed, with this amendment, the scope of floating can be extended to other sensitive sites other than nuclear sites in Belgium.

I hope that this text will gain a large majority in the Assembly today. It is high time to put ourselves at the forefront of our neighbors on nuclear security and satellite imaging.

At the end of the vote on this text, I invite the Minister of the Interior to make these provisions apply because, once the text is voted, the ball will be in his camp.

I will not fall into repetition. What Mr. Thiébaut says is indeed true. In my previous position at the Jambon Cabinet, we asked Google to be able to blur sites. It was then asked for a legal basis. That legal basis exists for military sites, but did not exist for other sites.

We were therefore very satisfied with the legislation of the PS group and saw in it the possibility of extending it to the nuclear sites. Meanwhile, the Flemish Interest Group developed a proposal on the prisons. This has also been taken into account. The prisons are also included in the proposed bill.

The State Council was consulted, as well as the National Crisis Center. We have a lot of experience with critical infrastructure. However, it is not simply intended to simply include lists of critical infrastructure in the KB. It is indeed intended that each competent minister with his department looks at which sites it is useful to blur. A risk analysis must be carried out. This should then be included in an unpublished appendix to the KB.

I would like to thank the colleagues for the very constructive cooperation, especially the colleagues of the PS.

Mr. Speaker, the Flemish Interest Group has also submitted a bill because Google, but also websites like Geopunt of the Flemish government – you hear it right – actually show little to no willingness to blur things like prison sites. From a safety point of view, it is imperative that the blurring takes place quickly and that it becomes legally mandatory; hence our bill.

In the case of Geopunt, it is even true that persons who request air images can simultaneously make a combination with different maps of gas and other pipes, so that actually life-threatening conditions can arise.

The draft law concerning the colleagues’ nuclear power plants has now been extended to all national critical infrastructure; therefore, the air images of prison sites will also be included here.

The proposed expansion cannot be underestimated. The question arises whether it is feasible to blur all images of all installations. In the committee and just then, it was answered that blurring will not be automatically mandatory. Only a legal framework will be provided, and implementing decisions will blur the infrastructure. A risk analysis must first be carried out – which has just been mentioned again – and that must then be poured into a KB.

The Flemish Interest Group is not at all against the expansion, but we wonder whether it would not have been better to place the prison sites separately in a bill, because it is a very urgent measure that could have come into effect immediately with our bill.

Nevertheless, we will support the bill on the blurring of all those sites, provided, of course, that the implementing decisions will not be postponed in the long run.

We will, of course, support this excellent proposal, Mr. Thiébaut. I myself was considering proposing a resolution aiming not at the flooding of nuclear power plants but at prisons.

This makes a lot of sense and I absolutely agree with the reasons why it is so. These are obvious issues of national security, which once again demonstrate the adverse effects that these new technologies, networks and others can also represent. I hope that we will again often have the opportunity, in this homicide, to testify to the urgency of finding legal possibilities to counter these adverse effects of new technologies.

This harmful character, Mr. Thiébaut, you have demonstrated for nuclear power plants. Following an intervention in the Justice Committee with the Minister, I would like to clarify that we have also submitted a proposal to float prisons for the same obvious reasons of national security.

We will, of course, support this proposal, which is common sense. I hope that we can also continue our work on the elements I have just mentioned.