In early March, concerns regarding the remote surveillance service of the Luxembourg National Railway Company (CFL) were brought to light by the newspaper Tageblatt.
At the request of the Pirate Party and the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP), the responsible parliamentary committee convened with CFL management, accompanied by Minister for Mobility Yuriko Backes.
The service has around 1,500 cameras installed in stations across the country. But, according to the Tageblatt, instead of keeping an eye on the monitors, the employees responsible would be sleeping, watching Netflix, or playing online poker. According to Tageblatt information, incidents of sexual and drug-related offences were purportedly overlooked or unreported.
CFL management denied all accusations on the day the report came out.
-> Following investigation: 'Nobody watches live footage,' say CFL video surveillance team
Addressing the issue, Minister Yuriko Backes stressed the need for an internal investigation into the conduct of CFL employees involved in remote surveillance. However, she cautioned against conflating different aspects of the security debate, emphasising that it's not the role of CFL employees to assume police responsibilities.
"The primary responsibility of CFL's surveillance is to monitor infrastructure, complementing the police's role in ensuring security. This collaboration is integral and effective," Backes asserted.
Pirate Party MP Marc Goergen expressed concerns over the efficacy of the CFL surveillance system, suggesting that it may have backfired.
"The CFL's surveillance system has served as a deterrent until now, until gangsters realised that nobody is watching and that they are only under scrutiny if the police make a request at some point. That's why the CFL needs to ask itself whether it should keep this system or whether it should deploy trained personnel who can promptly review footage […] to check whether something has been stolen, whether something has happened or not. Because otherwise this whole system is useless, and the money is thrown out of the window," Goergen remarked.
The issue is expected to resurface during discussions surrounding the legislative project on public transport security, proposed by former Minister for Mobility François Bausch in October 2023.
Five disciplinary proceedings in CFL remote surveillance service
In response to a parliamentary question from the Pirate Party, Minister Backes disclosed several figures concerning the CFL's remote surveillance service.
Over the past five years, the service reported 12 incidents to the police, while the police requested access to nearly 1,200 camera images. Meanwhile, there have been five disciplinary proceedings within the CFL remote surveillance service.
