Article 127/1, § 5, of the Act of 13 June 2005 on electronic communications provides the following: “The Minister of Telecommunication shall have a circular published in the Belgian Official Gazette, which includes a list of Belgian authorities entitled to obtain from an operator data retained pursuant to Articles 122, 123, 126, 126/1, 126/3 and 127.”
This circular was published in the Belgian Official Gazette of 1 March 2024 and is also available on the BIPT website.
The annex to this circular lists the Belgian authorities which declared that they are lawfully entitled to obtain data retained pursuant to one of the aforementioned articles from an operator.
Information complementary to this appendix can be found in the sheets of the following authorities:
- The judicial authorities;
- The Missing Persons Unit of the Federal police;
- The intelligence and security services (the Belgian State Security Service (VSSE) and the General Intelligence and Security Service);
- The Belgian Competition Authority (BCA);
- The Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA);
- The FPS Public Health, Food Chain Security and Environment;
- The Office of the Ombudsman for Telecommunications;
- The inspection services of the FPS Economy;
- The Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT);
- The Centre for Cyber Security Belgium (CCB);
- Statistics Belgium (under the FPS Economy, SMEs, Self-Employed and Energy (Statbel)).
These sheets have been established by these authorities. The BIPT has therefore no responsibility for their content (except regarding its own sheet).
The sheets indicate the type of company to which the authority can address its request. If these sheets refer to the notion of operator, then they refer to the notion as defined in Article 2, 11°, of the Act of 13 June 2005 on electronic communications (“a person or an undertaking providing a public electronic communications network or a publicly available electronic communications service”).
Certain sheets refer to the notion of electronic communications network operator and electronic communications service provider, which are broader notions than the notion of operator within the meaning of the aforementioned act.