Safety during your journey
Information about how we use your data to guarantee your safety during the journey.
What personal data do we use?
We use camera surveillance because we care about the safety of our travellers and employees. These cameras are used to record and later view footage. This enables us to quickly respond to incidents and to detect and prosecute infringements and criminal offences.
To further enhance safety, travellers can notify us when they feel unsafe in the train via WhatsApp or text message. This puts the traveller in direct contact with the NS Helpdesk, which can call on the assistance of NS staff if necessary. The service will require us to use your telephone number.
What do we use your personal data for?
Safety is a social issue that we have to deal with as well. In principle, rail travel is a safe mode of transport, but unsafe situations may occur. Alternatively, passengers may feel that a situation is unsafe due to the actions of aggressive travellers without a ticket, vandals or loiterers, or large crowds around the access gates.
The basis for data processing is: legitimate interest.
One of the measures we take for increased safety is camera surveillance in stations and in trains. In practice, this is an important tool in the prevention, investigation and prosecution of criminal offences and when dealing with other offences. Another important purpose is to support the efficient deployment of emergency services in the event of an emergency or request for assistance. The use of camera surveillance can also be used to support dispute resolution and to recover damages to NS property. It is also a useful tool for identifying the formation of large crowds, enabling NS to take measures to ensure the safe and smooth passage of travellers through the access gates. Without camera surveillance, we would not be able to guarantee the safety of our travellers, employees and property.
Camera surveillance is openly visible and is indicated by images on stickers. NS and its travellers all benefit from camera surveillance. We have also installed cameras on the front and rear of some train models. These cameras help us to process incidents on the track, and can also be used to prevent such incidents in the future.
You can find Security staff and Safety & Service officers, Main Conductors and service staff at all stations and on all trains. They are equipped with a bodycam for your safety and their own. The employee determines when to use the bodycam to capture a potentially unsafe situation.
Without this footage, we would not be able to investigate incidents or to ensure the safety of our travellers and employees. We believe this outweighs the risk of violating the privacy of a traveller or employee. We ensure that all footage is stored securely and that access to the footage is limited to authorised personnel only.
Notifying NS of unsafe situations via WhatsApp or SMS helps us to improve safety on our trains. In every conversation, you are given the chance to provide feedback about our services and response by clicking on the feedback link. Your answers are anonymised and processed by an external research agency for analysis purposes.
Tech-driven departure trial
Starting from August 2022, NS will be running a Tech-driven departure trial. While train departures are currently initiated by the main conductor, this trial will explore what happens when the process is initiated by technology and facilitated by the train driver. This technology consists of a set of cameras installed on the outside of the train and an automated protection system to stop passengers getting caught in the doors. The camera footage is sent to the driver's compartment to help the driver determine when it is safe to depart. During this trial, the train doors will be equipped with black cameras. Trains participating in this new trial will be marked with the following text: 'Hier testen wij nieuwe digitale technology' (We are testing new digital technology on this train).
Compatible use: scientific research and statistical purposes.
Finally, we may use the camera footage for use in or to commission scientific or other research for statistical purposes. This research looks at the working environment for train drivers and any possible improvements that can be made in terms of efficiency and safety. For this purpose, only blurred camera images will be used so that people cannot be recognised. No personal data will be shared with third parties for this purpose.
With whom do we share data?
We contract third parties to provide IT services, such as the incident reporting service described above. These third parties process our data solely for our own internal use, and for no other purpose. We have made agreements with these parties pertaining to the processing of personal data.
We are authorised to share your data with law enforcement agencies, such as the police, for the sake of detecting and preventing criminal offences.
We are authorised to provide your personal data to parties outside the European Economic Community under certain circumstances. In that event, we will take suitable measures with these parties, for example by agreeing to the standard provisions required by the European Commission.
How long do we store your data?
Only authorised personnel have access to the footage. If no incident has been recorded, the footage is retained for 28 days, after which it is deleted. In the event of an incident, all footage is retained until the incident has been handled and processed in its entirety. We may also proactively or preventively store images of incidents, if necessary.
When you submit a safety report, we will store your telephone number for 14 days.