He added: “At the moment, the law does not provide for the possibility of using cameras with facial recognition.”

However, in Knack magazine, the Commissioner General of the Federal Police, Marc De Mesmaeker, announced his intention to make such cameras available to security officers at Brussels Airport. “We will soon be introducing this technology at Brussels Airport. We have an agreement with the operator and the unions,” the Commissioner explained.

According to Mr Dobbelaere-Welvaert, cameras equipped with facial recognition software are allowed only for commercial use, not for security purposes.

Moreover, he added, facial recognition cameras are not useful without a prior database to compare images – and the only such database that exists is the National Registry. “But the National Registry doesn’t identify people through cameras,” said Mr Dobbelaere-Welvaert.

Mr Dobbelaere-Welvaert did claim, however, that the use of “intelligent” cameras would be legal; these are already used, for instance, in the city of Kortrijk. Thanks to updated software, these cameras are able to detect people with certain characteristics (a red bag, blue shoes, etc.). But they do not directly identify specific individuals.

When contacted for a reaction, the federal police maintained that the current legal framework is sufficient for the installation of such cameras. However, no one was available to provide any further explanations.

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Facebook will inform affected users from 9th April, company’s technical director Mike Schroepfer said on Wednesday. Belgians who believe Cambridge Analytica took their data can file a complaint with Facebook or Cambridge Analytica.

The UK company, accused of having aided pivotal elections like the Trump 2016 campaign and Brexit with the collected data, was able to farm directly and indirectly from Facebook by an online questionnaire « thisisyourdigitallife » application that not only gathered participants data but many unwilling people from their friends list.

The British administration, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) currently leads the investigation but has extended powers for international complaints to be made. The ICO’s preliminary report will come out April 10th at the plenary session of the « Data Protection Group Article 29 », advisory body of the European Commission, (to be replaced by the European Data Protection Board in May for more stringent privacy law)

Now move has yet been taken against the company as the decision to sanction the operator is the responsibility of the Member State in which the data processing institution is located. In the case of Facebook, it is Ireland. However, the European Data Protection Board may act if necessary, but in the meantime, Belgians who feel aggrieved are advised to file a complaint with the Privacy Commission.

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