All of the Internet monitoring mechanisms will soon be centralised within a “Regional Computer Crime Unit” (RCCU). This will operate as part of the organ for the prevention and coordination of security in the capital, implemented by the Brussels region, following recent state reforms.
The Regional Council for Security decided this on Tuesday. The Council brings together the Brussels Minister-President, the 19 mayors the six chiefs of police in the Brussels police zones and the judicial authorities. The Council in particular considered clashes which have broken out on three occasions, in the wake of events all of a different nature, at the heart of the capital in the course of the last month.
Financed by the Brussels region a specific cell will centralise, within the Regional Computer Crime Unit, all of the Internet monitoring tools. To do so, it will receive police staff support both from the Brussels police zones and the federal police, which will reproduce, on a local scale, their collaborative model on the ground.
Following the meeting, the Brussels Minister-President, Rudi Vervoort, commented, “Brussels has no intention of prohibiting demonstrations.” He added that the centralisation of data collection on activities, in particular around social networks, should enable the development of preventive alert capabilities relating to potential public order disturbances.
Mr Vervoort says that the digital prevention precaution is an illustration of the role, which the region intends to play in the coordination of security services following the sixth state reform. It will complete and rely upon the integrated Crisis and Communication Centre, that the Brussels-Capital has decided to implement in 2018. This Centre is “within a rationale both of transversality and improving the coordination of the various operators in the security chain.”
The Brussels Times
