Surveillance in Brussels public transport: an exploratory assessment

Bocquet, Nicolas [UCL] Corentin Debailleul et al.

(eng) In Brussels, the largest owner of video surveillance cameras is the regional public transport operator: the STIB-MIVB which aims at using 15,000 cameras by 2025. The SNCB-NMBS for its part has recently announced its intention to use facial recognition and is currently facilitating its roll-out by integrating it in the design of its refurbished stations. Meanwhile, the networks of these two major players in Brussels mobility are used every day by plenty of individuals who are largely unaware of the surveillance in place. Moreover, video surveillance is not the only way to collect personal data concerning public transport (PT) users. MOBIB travel cards also allow to collect a number of personal data and have also been widely criticised for not being sufficiently secure and jeopardising individuals' privacy. In addition to these two methods of collecting personal data about users, public transport regularly works with telecom operators to model people's movements, based on their telephone data. A technology that is increasingly used to monitor people's movements, just like footfall analytics, which is becoming more and more widespread and about which very little information is broadly available until now. In order to explore how the logics of surveillance are articulated in the context of Brussels PT, we want to highlight the actual collection and use of personal data: what kind of data is collected by which actors? How is this data used and for what purposes? With whom is this data shared? How long is this data kept and where? From a methodological point of view, our presentation will be based on an exploratory work that consists in a triangulation of sources (official documents, press, and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders). We will also make requests for access to our own personal data to see what access is possible as a daily user of the PT infrastructure. Empirically, this work will therefore provide a first overview of surveillance practices within the Brussels PT.