The Directorate of Operational Police Information is in charge of managing national and international operational judicial or administrative police information and communication at national and international level.

It fulfils this mission for the integrated police structured on two levels as well as for the authorities and for citizens.

Missions

The Directorate of Operational Police Information carries out the following missions:

• Supporting the policing policy, including the gathering of police statistics related to major events requiring administrative police measures, the measures taken by the police services in those fields, criminal statistics, the police fight against crime and the making of police strategic analyses based on those data.

• Developing a concept related to the integrated police data processing for the Federal and Local Police, for instance:
• standardization of data processing procedures.


• implementation of this concept in the functioning of District Information Crossroads through the administrative coordinating directors and the judicial directors.


• follow-up of this implementation.




• The management of the National General Database provided for in article 44/4 of the Police Function Act.



• The management of operational documentation, for instance:


• management of the central weapon register.


• dissemination of national and international police and judicial descriptions in police services.




• Together with the standing committee of the Local Police, the organisation, the management, the supervision and the operational coordination of centralised information and communication centres for the Federal and Local Police.



• Together with the general directorates of the administrative and judicial police, the organisation and management of the national contact point.
  This contact point is in charge of the operational aspects of the international police cooperation and acts as an operational interface for all Belgian and international police organisations and services in charge of international police cooperation.



• The operational aspects of international police cooperation, including:




• Maintaining international and operational contacts directly with foreign police services, the European police service (EUROPOL) and the international criminal police organization (INTERPOL).


• Acting as a central operational contact point within the framework of multilateral cooperation relations or of international organisations in police cooperation matters.


• The operational management and the dissemination of international police descriptions, particularly within structures and systems which have been established to this end in a multilateral way.


• Acting as an operational contact point for foreign liaison officers in Belgium.


• Acting as an operational contact point for representatives of Belgian police services abroad.


• The follow-up and operational support of operational contact points, as well as the operational management.




• Together with the general directorates of the administrative and judicial police, the organisation and the management of the common police centres.
  

Composition

The Directorate of Operational Police Information consists of 4 operational departments and 2 support departments making up about 1 100 staff members in total.

The Operation Department

The Operation Department is made up of the following:

• 11 Information and Communication Centres (1 in each province + 1 in the Brussels-Capital Region)
  The Information and Communication Centres provide support in the field of information and communication, more specifically in the operational management of events. Their main tasks are the following: call taking, dispatching of emergency calls and intervention team management.

• The National Contact Point
  The National Contact Point, in which the Directorate of Judicial Police Operations and the Directorate of Administrative Police Operations are also involved, is in charge of the operational aspects of international police co-operation and acts as a contact point for Belgian and international organisations and police departments in charge of international police co-operation.

The Operational Information Management Department

This department performs four main missions:

• developing applications;
• providing support to users (“customer service”);
• providing judicial support on the field of operational information management;
• managing the Central Weapon Register.

The Operational Information Management Department designs and contributes in a functional way to the implementation and maintenance of computer applications used by staff members to enable them to fulfil their operational tasks (e.g.: drawing up reports, using the National General Database, and so on). The department performs these tasks in close co-operation with the Directorate of Telematics.

It also manages a “help line” that provides users with information on the above-mentioned applications and helps them solve the problems they encounter in using them.

Providing judicial support consists in advising police departments on operational information matters but also in establishing regulations in this field and in enforcing data protection legislation.

The Central Weapon Register Department manages the administrative weapon database (it is in charge, among other things, of the quality of the data fed into the database) and provides the concerned departments with support for describing weapons.

The Information Processing Department

This department is in charge of processing the operational information at national and international level.

This mission involves the following:

• putting wanted notices on line (Investigation and Information Bulletin);
• managing the National Digital Photo Library;
• processing national and international police descriptions;
• exchanging international police information.

In order to perform its mission, the Information Processing Department can count on central departments but also on “common customs and police offices” located in Belgium as well as on the International Duty Desk within the National Contact Point (Interpol – Europol – Schengen – liaison officers). This department also receives the support of translators for the exchange of international operational information.

The Policing Policy Support Department

This department provides support for the policing policy. To this end, it develops, processes and disseminates management data in the field of judicial, administrative and traffic police as well as the “security survey”. It also implements the so-called “National Security Police Image” and the strategic analysis.

In this context, the department is continually developing the concept of strategic analysis (research and development of new risk analysis methods) and provides support to the strategic analysts working for the operational general directorates of the Federal Police.

The Operational Management Support Department

The Operational Management Support Department is made up of three sections carrying out general operational missions. These sections manage the directorate’s quality management system, the coordination of training courses for operational IT application end users as well as the external communication related to operational police information.

The Administrative Management Department

The Administrative Management Department controls all the general management processes (administration, staff management, logistics and finances) for the directorate.