Brussels police granted access to Stib's CCTV cameras

Brussels' six local police divisions will soon be able to consult the Stib's network of CCTV cameras in real-time - after years campaigning for access to the footage.

From June, all of the Brussels public transport operator's cameras will be viewable by local police in order to better carry out their patrol work.

Laurent Masset, a spokesman for the Uccle, Auderghem and Watermael-Boitsfort police zone said the Stib's extensive CCTV network would be valuable when someone calls police to report a disturbance.

"When we receive a distress call, the caller might be unable to accurately describe the situation," Masset said. "When we are told that there is a fight in the metro, we might currently send a lot of officers without knowing the exact situation.

"But if we can quickly check the CCTV images and we see two people fighting, we will be able to better assess how many police officers we should send."

He said police "are not going to watch the cameras all the time ... but when we receive calls for suspicious acts or when there is a patrol which is about to go into the metro. Then we can more easily see what is going on."