Privacy Statement

1. Collection and processing of personal data

The Directorate-General Civil Security of the Federal Public Service Home Affairs sets great store by respect for privacy and the protection of personal data. This is why we only process those personal data that are necessary for the performance of our (legal) duties. When processing, we always respect the provisions of the European Regulation 2016/679 (EU) on the protection of personal data (hereinafter "GDPR") and the Belgian legislation on the protection of privacy.

We receive your personal information when you are involved in an accident or emergency, because you use our services or because you provide this information to us yourself. If necessary, we will ask for your permission to collect and process these personal data.

Within the framework of its missions, the Directorate-General Civil Security is responsible  for processing your personal data. The purpose of this Privacy Statement is to inform you about which personal data we process, the purposes for which we process these data, how long we keep them and how you can exercise your rights in relation to these data.

2. What personal data do we process?

We only process the personal data that are necessary to perform our (legal) tasks or to be able to inform and/or respond to you, for example when you fill out an online form on our website or when you subscribe to a newsletter.

Specifically, this means that we may process the following personal data:

  • identification data, such as your name;
  • contact details, for example your postal or e-mail address or your telephone number;
  • Information about your interactions with us via our websites, our applications, phone calls, e-mails;
  • video footage taken by our cameras when you visit the premises of an emergency call centre or a civil protection unit or when you are filmed during a civil protection intervention where cameras are used;
  • location information when using the 112 app.

3. For what purposes do we process your personal data?

We process personal data for several reasons:

  • To be able to contact you, for example when you ask a question via a form on our website, when you have submitted an application to the Astrid Safety Committee or the Fire Prevention Derogation Committee.
  • To be able to provide you with the requested information, for example when you ask a question through a form on our website or when you have signed up for a newsletter or a job alert.
  • To carry out our legal assignments. Our main task is to protect citizens and their property during accidents and emergencies. The emergency call centres as well as the operational units of the Civil Protection and the Direction Firefighters help implement this mission. Within our legal assignments, these are the processing purposes:
    • Notifying the emergency services. When you call the emergency number 112 or the number 1722, the following personal data are processed: the address to which the emergency services should be sent and your telephone number. These data need to be processed so that the necessary assistance can be provided and the emergency services can contact you if necessary, e.g. if they cannot find the address. The 112 app will automatically pass your location information to the emergency centre (unless you choose to change this setting). When you use the 1722.be website, you will be asked for your e-mail address instead of your mobile number, so that the fire department can contact you should this prove necessary.
    • Ensuring the proper functioning of our emergency centres and civil protection operational units (in the use of drones and cameras during civil protection interventions, in the use of personnel and intervention management software)
    • Training the staff of the rescue zones and civil protection (in the management and organisation of training)
    • Supervising compliance with the regulations (by the General Inspectorate for Civil Security and the administrative supervision mentioned in the Act of 15 May 2007 on civil security).
  • To improve our services through quality control and research and development.  Visitors to our websites can agree that we keep visitor statistics in order to adapt our websites to the needs of the visitors. The calls to the emergency number 112 can be retrieved for the purposes of investigating complaints or for internal training purposes of our operators.
  • To ensure the safety of our buildings. Visitors to our buildings at Rue de Louvain à Bruxelles are asked to register at the reception desk. When security cameras are used, this is done in accordance with the Camera Act of 21 March 2007 and is indicated by the statutory pictogram.

For each of these purposes, your personal data will be processed for this purpose only and will not be communicated to third parties unless required by law. They are not used for direct marketing purposes.

If your request for information or service falls within the jurisdiction of another administration, we will provide you with the contact details of the appropriate administration so that you have the option to contact them. 

4. On what basis do we process your personal data (legal grounds for processing)?

According to article 6 of the GDPR, we only process the necessary personal data on the basis of the following legal grounds:

  • Within the framework of our legal assignments, either because the regulations require such data processing, or because it is necessary for the performance of a public interest task entrusted to us by the regulations :
    Personal Data are processed if this proves necessary, for example to answer calls to 1722 or to carry out civil protection interventions.
  • For the protection of vital interests of the person concerned :
    Personal data are processed to protect the vital interests of you or another person. This is the case when we answer calls to 112.
  • With your consent:
    Personal data can be processed if you have given your consent, for example for sending a newsletter or an (vacancy or federal aptitude test (FGA)) alert. You can withdraw your consent at any time. If you no longer wish to receive the Security Newsletter, you can unsubscribe by clicking on the link at the bottom of each newsletter.

5. How long do we keep your personal data?

We will not retain your personal data any longer than necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we have collected them, unless there is a legal obligation to retain them for a longer period, for example, within the framework of the Archives Act of 24 June 1955 (amended by the Act of 19 May 2009). As a federal government, we are subject to this law and cannot freely destroy the documents in our possession. When documents no longer have an administrative and/or legal use, they can still be of historical, scientific or statistical interest. They are then sent to the State Archives who store them in selection lists which you  can consult here in Dutch or in French

For the documents that are not included in these selection lists, we determine the retention period according to objectively established criteria in compliance with the applicable legal provisions or taking into account certain time limits for the settlement of possible disputes or the requests of an auditing authority.

Calls to the emergency centres and requests for non-urgent assistance (via the number 1722 or the e-portal 1722.be) are kept for a period of 1 year after the call or request, for the purposes of handling possible complaints, training our operators and internal quality control.

The images taken by the operational units of the civil protection in the course of their work are kept for 1 month. Afterwards, the images are removed or made anonymous if we still want to use them for training purposes or campaigns. When the images contribute to the evidence of a crime, they are kept for the duration of the limitation period of the criminal proceedings.

The personal data you provide us with in order to receive a newsletter or an (vacancy or FGA) alert will be stored until the moment you unsubscribe. When you ask a question via the contact form on our website, your personal data will be deleted once your question has been answered.

6. Who do we pass your personal data to?

We only share your personal data with third parties when this proves necessary for performing our and their legal duties. In order to achieve the purposes set out in point 3, we may pass on your personal data to the services of the FPS Home Affairs and to our partners, including the emergency services, the fire brigade schools, the ambulance services and to our processors. If required, we will first ask your permission before passing on the data.

We require our partners to treat personal data confidentially and to use them only for the purpose for which we have provided them. Under no circumstances will we transfer personal data outside the European Economic Area. 

7. Our processing register

We keep a processing register in accordance with Article 30 of the GDPR. This register contains all the personal data processing operations that we carry out as well as all the information relating to them, such as the basis, purposes, recipients, storage periods and all the other information required by Article 30.

8. Security policy

We take the protection of your personal data seriously and take the necessary security measures to protect them against loss and unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure. For this purpose, we use security techniques and procedures which are set out in our information security policy, details of which are not given on this page for security reasons. In general, these include technical measures, such as limiting the number of users, system protection by means of account and user names and passwords, secure server connections and contractual agreements with suppliers. In addition to technical measures, organisational measures were also taken, such as the physical access policy, the locking of certain rooms, drawers and cupboards, and making our staff aware of information security. However, we cannot guarantee 100% that unauthorised persons will never succeed in circumventing these measures. Should this occur despite our measures, we will make every effort to prevent or minimise the damage.

If you were to notice a breach of personal data managed by us, for example if you find a file, a laptop or a smartphone belonging to one of our staff members or if you notice that passwords linked to the Directorate-General Civil Security are circulating on the Internet, you can report this
either by calling 0800/1 1610 immediately
or by completing the form available in Dutch, in French or in German and sending it to incidents.gdpr@ibz.fgov.be.

9. What are your rights and how can you exercise them? 

In accordance with the GDPR and taking into account the legal restrictions, you have several rights: 

  • Right of access: You can obtain information about the processing of your personal data and obtain a copy of these personal data. For the images taken by our cameras, you have a right of access to the images without prejudice to the protection of the personal data of other persons. For security reasons, it is not possible to obtain a copy of the images.
  • Right to rectification: if you believe that your personal data are incorrect or incomplete, you can ask for these to be rectified. 
  • Right to erasure: you can ask for your personal data to be erased. However, if the processing is imposed by law or is done in the context of a public interest mission, it is impossible to erase the data.
  • Right to restriction of processing: You can request the restriction of the processing of your personal data if you exercise your right to object, if you dispute the accuracy of the data, if the processing is unlawful or if you need the data for the establishment, exercise or substantiation of your legal claims.
  • Right to object: You may object to your personal data being processed, for reasons relating to your particular situation but only in the cases specified in Article 21 of the GDPR.
  • Right to withdraw your consent: if the processing of your personal data is based solely on your consent, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time.

To assist you in exercising your rights, we provide a contact form available in Dutch, in French or in German that sends your request to our Data Protection Officer (DPO). You can also do this by letter, addressed to

The DPO of the FPS IBZ
Federal Public Service Home Affairs
Rue de Louvain 1
1000 Brussels

If, after contacting our DPO, you feel that your rights are not being respected or that any processing of your personal data is in breach of the GDPR, you are entitled to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority. More information can be found at www.dataprotectionauthority.be.

10. Amendments to the Privacy Statement

The Directorate-General Civil Security may amend this Privacy Statement if necessary. The most current version is always posted on our websites under the heading 'Privacy Statement'.  

This Privacy Statement was last modified on May 23, 2023.