Privacy

1. In general

Integrated police services (Federal Police and local police zones) attach substantial importance to the protection of privacy and process the personal data they receive or collect with the greatest care.  

This policy generally describes how police services process personal data in compliance with the obligation of transparency provided for by data protection legislation.  

The applicable data protection legislation includes:

  • Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (GDPR);
  • Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and the free movement of such data and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA;
  • Law of 5 August 1992 on the police function (WPA/LFP);
  • Law of 30 July 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data (Data Protection Law).

For operational processing in the context of an administrative and/or judicial police mission: see point 5.3.

2. Who are we?

This website is an integrated website for both the Federal and the Local Police.  

In general, the website is managed by the Federal Police, represented by the Directorate of Police Information and ICT Resources (DRI). However, certain webpages as part of specific processes are independently managed by different directorates of the Federal Police and/or local police zones. 

3. What are personal data?

Personal data means any information enabling direct or indirect identification of a natural person such as a name, an address, an identification number, an IP address, a number plate, etc. 

4. What type of personal data do we process? 

We only collect and process personal data to inform and/or provide you with an answer when you complete an online form, subscribe to a newsletter or browse through the different pages of our website.  

We process the following data on our website: 



•    personal identifiers (family name, first name, address, telephone number, etc.);

•    electronic identifiers (IP address, cookies, etc.);

•    personal details (place and date of birth, nationality, etc.);

•    information concerning your interactions with us through our website, our applications, emails, etc.

For operational processing: see art. 44/5 of the Law on the police function.

5. How do we use your personal data?

For the processing of personal data, we distinguish between those processed for website consultation on the one hand and other police processes on the other.  

5.1 use of cookies for consultation of the website and/or provision of information;

The main purpose of this website is to provide information to citizens. Therefore, the (authorised) use of functional cookies is necessary to ensure effective operation, security and overall analysis of the website on the basis of legitimate interest (see cookie policy for information about types of cookies and retention periods).

 

5.2 collection of contact details through different forms;

When you contact the police services through the website, you are asked to provide a set of personal data such as your name, address, telephone number, email address, etc.  

Police services use your personal data for the purpose for which they were collected. A concrete example: if you give your name and address to comply with a request for information, those data will not be used for other purposes, nor to send you other information, such as newsletters.    

NB: Emails, including messages in contact forms on the website, are stored in email archives for one year. You have the right to object to this by mentioning that you wish to have your message removed after processing of the request. 

On the website itself, the data retention period is also limited to one year.  

5.3 data collection for policing purposes (in the framework of administrative and/or judicial police missions). 

Police services use your personal data for the purpose for which they were collected and to be able to carry out their administrative and/or judicial police missions.

Processing and retention of personal data for administrative and/or judicial purposes are governed by: 

  • Law on the police function;
  • Law on the Integrated Police;
  • Code of Criminal Procedure; 
  • Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data;
  • Law of 30 July 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data.

6.    Retention of your personal data 

In the absence of legal provisions specifying a retention period, such as those of the law on the police function, police services shall not keep your personal data longer than necessary for the purposes for which they were collected.  

To illustrate this, different retention periods are laid down in the Ministerial Circular PLP 40 on the archives of the Local Police. 

The retention of data according to police processes is regulated by the Law on the police function. (see art. 44/9, art. 44/11/2, §6, art. 44/11/3, §4 and art. 44/11/3decies, §3) 

7. Who has access to the personal data collected through the website?

The website manager processes the personal data collected through the website. 

For technical reasons, those data are also accessible to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister which hosts the website and database (Drupal). 

Personal data shall, as a rule, not be transferred to other organisations, except to comply with legal obligations or at the express request of judicial authorities. 

Data may be transmitted to the authorities concerned, supervisory authorities and third parties in accordance with legal obligations, e.g. in case of suspicion and/or attempt to detect criminal offences, if users violate the conditions of use of the website or to ensure the personal data processing policy.

The conditions under which the operational data or information may or may not be directly accessible, consultable or communicated are determined, among other things, by the Law on the police function. (see art. 44/11/7 to art. 44/11/14) and other legal and regulatory provisions.

8. Links to websites managed by third parties

If you click on a link on this website, you will be redirected to a website that is not controlled by the Federal Police.  

 

9. What are your rights and how to exercise them?

9.1 Rights of data subjects

Data subjects, i.e. the persons whose personal data are processed through the website, have a number of rights: 

  1. right of information: the principle of transparency requires that police services give data subjects information in relation to the processing of personal data relating to them. The web page has been designed to meet this objective. 
  2. right of access: data subjects have the right of access to personal data which concern them and which they provided to police services through the website. 
  3. right to rectification: data subjects have the right to have inaccurate or incomplete personal data rectified or completed. 
  4. right to erasure: data subjects have the right to obtain the erasure of personal data concerning them without undue delay. The right to erasure, however, is not an absolute right. 
  5. right to withdraw consent: where personal data processing is based on consent, data subjects have the right to withdraw their consent at any time. The right to withdraw consent, however, can be restricted. 

Data subjects’ rights can vary depending on the type of processing carried out through the website:

  • if the processing relates to the use of cookies or the collection of contact details through a form, data subjects can have all the above-mentioned rights (1 to 5);
  • if the processing relates to data collection for policing purposes (administrative and/or judicial police missions), data subjects only have the rights referred to in 1 to 3. 

     

9.2 Exercise of the rights of data subjects

Requests to exercise data subjects’ rights also vary depending on the type of processing carried out through the website:

  • if the processing relates to the use of cookies or the collection of contact details through a form, requests are to be sent to the Directorate of Police Information and ICT Resources (DRI) through the privacy form;
  • if the processing relates to data collection for policing purposes (administrative and/or judicial police missions), requests are to be sent to the Supervisory Body for Police Information Management (COC) at the following address: 

     

Supervisory Body for Police Information Management    

Rue de Louvain 48    

1000 Brussels    

Email: info@organedecontrole.be

Website users can also contact the COC if they are dissatisfied with the answer of the police. 

10. Remedies

Without prejudice to any other administrative or judicial remedy, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Supervisory Body for Police Information Management and to a judicial remedy if you consider that your rights are infringed or that the processing of your personal data constitutes an infringement of data protection legislation. 

11.    Data security

Police services take all necessary measures to ensure security of your personal data. They ensure protection of your data against unauthorised access, unauthorised use, loss or unlawful alteration. Police services have taken appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure security and confidentiality of your personal data. 

12. Controller and DPO (data protection officer)

12.1 Controller

Any data processing collected by the Federal Police through the current website as well as the general information made available on the website is managed by the Directorate of Police Information and ICT Resources (DRI).

The (general) directorates of the Federal Police and the heads of Local Police Corps are each responsible for their part of the website published by them or for the data processed by them through the website.

For the processing of personal data and information in the General National Database (ANG) as well as in the basic databases, the Minister of the Interior is the data controller as far as administrative police are concerned. As far as judicial police are concerned, it is the Minister of Justice. (see art. 44/4, §1 WPA/LFP)

The Ministers of the Interior and of Justice are jointly, in the case of resources dedicated to the achievement of purposes of administrative and judicial police, or each separately in the case of exclusive purposes, data controllers for the technical databases (see art. 44/11/3sexies, §1 WPA/LFP)

As far as special databases are concerned, the data controllers are the heads of local police corps, the general commissioner, the general directors or the directors who have determined the purposes and means of these special databases (see art. 44/4, §1 WPA/LFP). The Heads of a Local Police Zone are also controllers of the local technical databases. (see art. 44/11/3sexies, §1 WPA/LFP)

12.2 DPO (data protection officer)

You can send your comments or complaints about the processing of your personal data on the website to our data protection officer.

Comments or complaints that do not relate to data collected through the website should be addressed to the data protection officer authorised under the provisions under 12.1.

Update of this policy

This policy is subject to updates. You are therefore requested to consult it on a regular basis to be informed of any amendments.