Privacy | Low Emission Zone

Privacy Statement

General

The Low Emissions Zone (hereinafter referred to as “LEZ”) is an area where the most polluting road vehicles are not permitted to drive. The vehicles concerned are determined by their Euro standard. Unauthorised vehicles driving in the area face a fine of 350 euros.

To carry out its supervisory tasks, the Brussels Regional Public Service for Taxation (hereinafter referred to as “Brussels Taxation”) processes personal data concerning you, obtained directly from you and/or from other sources.

The LEZ is controlled by means of smart cameras (known as ANPR) installed on the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region. These cameras continuously flash all vehicles and use certain databases to check whether or not the vehicle is permitted to drive in the area or not. Roadside checks may also be organised.

For vehicles registered in Belgium, the cameras compare the licence plate number with the data of the Directorate for Vehicle Registration in order to check whether the technical characteristics of the vehicle (Euro standard) comply with the LEZ legislation. In the event of non-compliance, the identity of the licence plate holder is checked against the National Register of Natural Persons and a fine is imposed.

For vehicles registered abroad, the cameras compare the licence plate number with the database maintained by Brussels Taxation on the basis of the list of foreigners registered to drive in the Brussels-Capital Region. Under the LEZ legislation, they must register their vehicles before entering the LEZ, even if their vehicles are compliant. However, vehicles registered in a country with which Belgium has organised vehicle data exchanges under international agreements do not need to be registered. Data related to these vehicles is obtained directly from the State concerned.

If a vehicle does not meet the access conditions, it is possible to purchase a day pass. Similarly, it is possible for some people, because of the characteristics of their vehicle (vintage, motor home) or personal criteria (parking card), to obtain an exemption. In this case, even if their vehicle does not meet the access conditions, they are permitted to drive in the LEZ.

The LEZ website allows you to perform a simulation and manage your applications for registration, exemptions and day passes.

All these operations constitute processing of personal data. Such processing shall be carried out in compliance with the applicable legislation on the protection of personal data, and in particular with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation, hereinafter GRDP).

In accordance with the guiding principles of personal data protection, your data is processed in a lawful, fair and transparent manner and is adequate, relevant and limited in relation to the purposes for which they were collected by Brussels Taxation.

In addition to the information contained in this personal data protection policy, generic privacy information may be consulted on the protection of privacy on the website of the Data Protection Authority.

Security policy

In order to guarantee the security and confidentiality of your data, Brussels Taxation implements all security measures to prevent the loss of your data, to guarantee secure and limited access to persons authorised to access your data and to prevent any illegitimate use of your data

Personal data

In accordance with the legislation on the protection of privacy, personal data is defined as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person”, either because you can be identified directly on the basis of the data concerned, or because you are identified by reference. In all cases, only natural persons are concerned by the protection of their personal data, as data relating to legal persons is not covered by the definition.

Data controller and data protection officer

The Brussels Regional Public Service for Taxation, located at Place Saint-Lazare 2, 1210 Brussels, represented by its Director General, is the data controller. Brussels Taxation determines, alone or jointly with others, the purposes and means of processing your personal data in order to fulfil its legal obligations.

To process your personal data, Brussels Taxation uses the services of a data processor specialised in the management and computer security of data, the Computer Science Centre for the Brussels Region (CIRB). In order to ensure compliance with privacy legislation, Brussels Taxation ensures that this data processor provides sufficient guarantees as to the implementation of technical and organisational measures to comply with the legislation in force and to ensure the protection of your rights.

Like any public authority, Brussels Taxation has appointed a Data Protection Officer, whose main role is to ensure that Brussels Taxation complies with privacy legislation. This is also the contact person at the Data Protection Authority. To contact the Data Protection Officer, please send an email to the following address: dpo.bf@fisc.brussels.

Categories of data collected by Brussels Taxation and purposes of the processing of this data

In the context of the supervision of the LEZ, Brussels Taxation processes the following personal data:

Vehicle data

This data mainly concerns the technical specifications of the vehicle, allowing its identification (e.g. licence plate number) and making it possible to check whether the access conditions are respected (Euro standard, vehicle category, etc.).

This data includes:
- where the vehicle is registered in Belgium: the data provided by the Directorate for Vehicle Registration (Federal Public Service Mobility and Transport - Directorate General Road Transport and Road Safety) the complete list can be consulted in the authorisation that Brussels Taxation has obtained for this purpose.
- where the vehicle is registered abroad: the data provided by the applicant when registering the vehicle (licence plate number, country of registration, dates of first and last registration, fuel type, Euro standard) or, when an international data exchange agreement between Belgium and the country in which the vehicle is registered exists, the data provided by that country.
Data relating to the licence plate holder, the applicant or persons entitled to an exemption

This data includes:
- Where the vehicle is registered in Belgium:
  - the data of the licence plate holder provided by the National Register of Natural Persons (Federal Public Service Interior - Directorate General Institutions Population), the communicated of which to Brussels Taxation was authorised by the Commission for the Protection of Privacy
  - data from the Directorate General for Disabled Persons of the Federal Public Service Social Security, the communication of which to Brussels Taxation was authorised by the Commission for the Protection of Privacy (recognition of the specific disability of persons who are entitled to a vehicle adapted for the transport of persons with a disability and who have received approval for this purpose from the authorities and characteristics of the special parking card for disabled persons)
- when the vehicle is registered abroad: the identification data of the applicant for registration (surname, first name, date of birth, address, e-mail address)
The purposes pursued by Brussels Taxation are as follows:
- controlling the LEZ and imposing fines on offenders
- granting exemptions to unauthorised vehicles
- managing and issuing access passes for unauthorised vehicles
- statistical analysis (in this context, the data processed is first anonymised)
- monitoring of the policy of the Brussels-Capital Region (in this context, the data processed is first anonymised).

Retention of your personal data

Brussels Taxation only keeps your personal data for as long as is strictly necessary for the performance of its tasks.

The table below shows the retention period for personal data according to the purpose for which it is kept.

Purpose	Personal data	Maximum retention period	Justification
Controlling the LEZ and managing administrative fines	Photograph of the vehicle and licence plate	1 month If it is not possible to prove an offence If it is possible to prove an infringement: as long as the file is open and the limitation periods have not expired	Law of 21 March 2007 regulating the installation and use of surveillance cameras (art. 5, § 4): an image that cannot be used to prove an offence may not be kept for more than one month (with some exceptions). As long as a file is open (unpaid, in court, etc.), the data must be kept.
Registration of a foreign vehicle	Vehicle identification vehicle licence plate country of registration date of first and last registration type of fuel Euro standard Identification of the applicant Surname, first name, date of birth address email address	5 years and 3 months Details: 5 years: registration validity period +3 months	Article 9 of the Decree of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region of 25 January 2018 on the creation of a low-emissions zone. Legal time limit for data retention after the end of the validity of the registration - Brussels Air, Climate and Energy Management Code (Article 3.2.17, § 3, paragraph 1)
Exemption (access authorisation for vehicles which are in principle prohibited)	Existence of one of the grounds for exemption under Article 5, § 1(4) of the Decree of the Brussels-Capital Region of 25 January 2018 on the creation of a low-emissions zone. In particular: Possession by the licence plate holder or a person domiciled at his home, of a special card referred to in article 27.4.3 of the Highway Code, or a similar document as referred to in article 27.4.1 of the Highway Code	5 years, 5 months and 9 days Details: 69 days: processing of the application 5 years: validity period of the exemption +3 months	The application for exemption must be processed within 69 days - Article 8 of the Decree of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region of 25 January 2018 on the creation of a low-emissions zone. Legal time limit for the retention of data after the end of the validity of the exemption - Brussels Air, Climate and Energy Management Code (Article 3.2.17, § 3, paragraph 2)
Purchase of a day pass.	Vehicle identification vehicle licence plate country of registration date of fist and last registration Identification of the applicant First name Surname Email address	1 year and 3 months + 10 years Details: maximum 1 year: until 31 December of the year in which the first access pass is issued +3 months For accounting purposes, limited data (relating to payment) is also kept for a period of 10 years	The number of access passes is limited to per calendar year (from 1 January to 31 December). On 1 January of the following year, it is again possible to obtain 8 access passes. Article 6 of the Decree of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region of 25 January 2018 on the creation of a low-emissions zone. Legal time limit for the retention of data after the end of the validity of the access pass - Brussels Air, Climate and Energy Control Code (Article 3.2.17, § 3, paragraph 2) Article 40 of the Organic Ordinance of 23 July 2016 laying down the provisions applicable to the budget, accounting and control

Recipients of your personal data and transmission to third parties

Brussels Taxation constantly ensures the confidentiality of your data, both internally and externally.

Internally, access to your personal data by Brussels Taxation agents is strictly limited, only persons who need to consult your file in the context of their duties being authorised to access your data.

Externally, Brussels Taxation ensures that your personal data are only transmitted to persons for whom knowledge of your data is necessary for the performance of their tasks. This may be:

yourself or your representative
other regional public services, provided that a legal provision so provides
States with which Belgium has concluded international conventions or agreements on administrative cooperation or exchange of information, insofar as such cooperation concerns the Brussels-Capital Region
bailiffs, notaries, lawyers, insofar as they are involved in your case
judges and other parties in judicial proceedings.

Your rights and how to exercise them

As a data subject, you have a number of rights with regard to your data, granted by the General Data Protection Regulation.

For information: However, not all the rights granted to data subjects apply, some of which not being relevant to the relationship between you and Brussels Taxation. This is the case for the right to data portability, allowing you to receive personal data about you that you have provided to the data controller in a format that is commonly used and readable, for example, to communicate it to another controller (e.g. telephone operators).

Right of access to your personal data (Article 15 of the GDPR)

To enable you to check which data is held by Brussels Taxation, the purposes for which it is collected and the use made of it, you may submit a request not only to know whether personal data concerning you is processed, but also to obtain various information as to its use, in particular the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned, the recipients to whom the personal data is addressed or the retention period for personal data.

Right to obtain the rectification of any inaccurate personal data concerning you (Article 16 of the GDPR)

In cases where you find that personal data concerning you held by Brussels Taxation is inaccurate, you may submit a request to have the incorrect data rectified. You may also request that incomplete data concerning you be completed.

The right, where provided for in the General Data Protection Regulation, to obtain the deletion of your data (Article 17 of the GDPR)

In a limited number of cases, you may request that Brussels Taxation delete your personal data:

where your personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected
where you withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal data by Brussels Taxation, provided that there is no other legal basis for the processing of such data
where, pursuant to Article 21 of the GDPR, you object to the processing of your personal data and there are no compelling legitimate reasons to continue processing
where your personal data has been unlawfully processed
where your personal data must be deleted in order to comply with a legal obligation under European, Belgian or Brussels law.

The right to delete data is not an absolute right. This means that Brussels Taxation will not always be required to comply with your request, in particular when your personal data is necessary for the performance of legal or public interest tasks.

The right, where provided for in the General Data Protection Regulation, to obtain the restriction of processing (Article 18 of the GDPR)

In a limited number of cases, you may obtain a restriction of processing of your personal data. This means, unlike the deletion of data, that Brussels Taxation will continue to retain your personal data, but may only process it, except for the processing necessary for its retention, with your consent.

You can make use of this right:

where the processing is unlawful
Where Brussels Taxation no longer needs your personal data for the purposes for which it was collected, but you still need it to establish, exercise or defend legal rights.

You may also exercise this right pending a decision on the exercising of one of the rights listed below, in order to temporarily restrict the processing of your personal data:

the right of rectification: when personal data concerning you is inaccurate, you may request that processing be interrupted during the examination of your request by Brussels Taxation
the right of opposition: where you have submitted a request for opposition to the processing of your personal data, you may request that, during the examination of your request by Brussels Taxation, the processing be interrupted.

The right to restriction of processing is not an absolute right. This means that Brussels Taxation will not always be required to comply with your request, in particular when your personal data is necessary for the performance of legal or public interest tasks.

To exercise one of the rights listed above, please send us your request:

by email, to the following address: privacy.fiscalite@fisc.brussels
by post, to the following address:

Service public régional de Bruxelles Fiscalité

Direction des Affaires juridiques et des Recours

Place Saint-Lazare, 2

1210 Brussels

Always include a copy of your identity card with your application. In the event that you exercise the rights of another person, remember to also attach proof of your capacity to act on their behalf.

Complaints and appeals

Without prejudice to any other administrative or judicial remedy, if you consider that the processing of your personal data constitutes a breach of the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority. Similarly, you may also bring legal proceedings if you consider that your rights have been breached as a result of the processing of personal data in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation.

To lodge a complaint, please contact the Data Protection Authority directly:

by email, at the following address contact@apd-gba.be
by post, to the following address:

Autorité de protection des données

Rue de la Presse, 35

1000 Brussels

Policy regarding cookies and similar technologies

To make the use of our website and application easier and more enjoyable we use cookies (by cookies we mean the collection of cookies, trackers, pixels, plug-ins, beacons, reCAPTCHA’s, apps and applets). Cookies enable our website to remember your actions and preferences (user name, language, font size and other display parameters) for a fixed period of time, so you do not have to enter this data every time you consult the website or surf from one page to another.

Would you like to add or delete cookies?

Click on the "Change my preferences" link to access your personal preferences.

1 What is a cookie

A cookie is a small text file, possibly encrypted, that a website stores on your computer or other technological devices (smartphone, tablet, etc.) that you use to consult the website. These cookies are designed to both speed up and personalise your use of the website every time you visit and return to it.

To this end, cookies exchange data between your web browser (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Linux Opera, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge etc.) and the server hosting the website. For instance, cookies provide information about your preferences for the display of the website (language, font size...), your browsing history, your choices regarding the options offered by a website and the registration data.

Cookies enable us, for example, to compare new users with old, gain insight into how people navigate the website, count website visitors and obtain data that will enable us to improve the future surfing experience.

Cookies do not keep trace of a user's personal data, and identifiable information is never registered. If you do not wish cookies to be used, you must configure your computer’s parameters to erase all cookies from websites and/or receive a notification if cookies are stored.

If you do not wish to change the cookies setting, you can simply continue your visit to the website.

2 Which type of cookies do we use?

(Non)-Essential	Type of cookie	Name of the cookie	Cookie storage time	Purpose of the cookie
Essential	Cookies that are strictly necessary for surfing	JSESSIONID	1 year	Maintain the user's session
		ROUTE	1 year	Session affinity, indicates the processing server
		Lez-cart	1 year	To create and restore a cart for an anonymous user
		Cai-conversation	1 day	Continuing an existing conversation while browsing or revisiting the platform
	Functional cookies	Cookie-consent-lez	1 year	Obtain the visitor's consent for non-essential cookies
Not-essential	Analitical cookies and performance cookies	_ga	1 year	Analytical, performance and audience measurement cookies
		_gid	1 day	For metrics on the analytics platform (number of visitors, ....)
		_gat_UA-57602273-5	1 minute	For metrics on the analytics platform (number of visitors, ....)
	Targeted cookies	_gcl_au	3 months	Measure the effectiveness of our various communication actions, or of an adverstising campaign.

2.1 Cookies that are strictly necessary for surfing

These cookies are essential to browse our website and use its functionalities. They cannot be disabled in our systems. They are placed on your terminal in response to what you are doing and that constitutes a service request, such as determining your privacy preferences, logging in (accessing secure areas of the website) or filling forms.

They make it possible to:

browse between different sections of websites;
fill in forms;
securely verify your identity before granting access to your personal data when a personal account has been created, including browsing between the secure areas of the website requiring authentication.

You can configure your internet browser to block cookies or to warn you about the existence of cookies. Should you later refuse those cookies, certain sections of the website or certain services will either not work properly or not work at all.

2.2 Functional cookies

Functional cookies, also known as ‘functionality cookies’, provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They facilitate and analyse the operation of the website to make its use more pleasant and personalised by enabling the site to remember the choices you have made and providing you with more precise and personal characteristics.

More specifically, they make it possible to:

personalise services by remembering your preferences (your user name, language choice, currency, region where you are located, etc);
avoid having to reformulate your choices each time you visit the website (changes made by the user are retained, such as text size or font);
collect data communicated on online forms;
provide services that you have requested (like watching a video or leaving a comment on a blog);

These cookies are specific to the content management platform (WordPress, Drupal, Liferay, Craft CMS): a kind of software that can be described as the ‘engine’ of a website.

The data these cookies collect is anonymised and not capable of tracking your surfing behaviour on other websites.

If you block these cookies, all or part of our services may not function properly.

2.3 Analytical cookies and performance cookies

These cookies collect information about how visitors use our website and, in particular, the frequency with which the website is visited and the users' behaviour while on it.

More specifically, these cookies enable us to compile statistics, for example, by counting the visits and determining the origin of the visitors so we can measure and improve the performance of our website and our services. These cookies help determine which pages are the most and the least popular and to see how visitors surf the website and use the services.

These cookies also monitor performance by signalling whether error messages are generated, how often this happens and in response to which actions.

The cookies do not collect information that can be used to identify visitors. Since the data collected by these cookies has already been aggregated, information remains anonymous. These cookies are, therefore, only intended to improve the functioning of the website.

The data collected by the cookies is aggregated. Consequently, if you disable them, we will not know when you visited our website or used the services and will not be able to monitor performance.

2.4 Targeted cookies

These cookies collect data relating to your browsing habits on the internet and your use of our services to provide you with advertising that is customised to your specific interests. They can also allow you to limit the number of times that you see an advertising message and help us evaluate the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns. Usually, they are installed by advertising networks with the permission of the website operator. These cookies remember visits to a website and share that information with other companies (e.g. advertising companies). These targeted cookies are often linked to the functionalities of the website provided by the partner company.

They make it possible to:

prevent you from being repeatedly confronted with the same advertising messages;
measure the effectiveness of our various communication actions or an advertising campaign;
personalise the advertising on our websites and other communication platforms.

The data is collected and shared with third parties to target certain types of audiences and propose optimising solutions to our administrations, publishers and possibly advertisers. No personal data is collected and an individual cannot be identified through the data that is collected.

Targeted cookies are based on the unique identification number of your browser and digital device on the internet (IP address). If you block these cookies you will continue to see advertisements. You will receive less targeted advertising.

2.5 Cookies issued on our websites by third parties

Cookies issued by third parties may be installed within (third party) applications built into our website or services, within advertising content (graphics, animations, videos, etc.) distributed via the advertising spaces built into our website. This is the case for the "Share" and "Like" buttons, from social networks such as "Facebook", "Twitter", "LinkedIn", "Viadeo", etc.

A social network that provides such an application button is likely to identify you, even if you did not use this button when you visited our website. Indeed, this type of button may allow a social network to track your browser activity on our website, simply because your social network account was active on your device (open session) while browsing.

The issue and use of cookies by third parties is subject to those third parties’ privacy policies. We therefore have no control over social networks collecting information about your activity on their websites or services associated with the personal data they hold.

Please consult these social networks’ privacy policies to learn about the purpose, including advertising, of the browser information they may collect through these application buttons. These protection policies must allow you to make choices on these social networks by setting up your user accounts for each network.

We remind you that you can, at any time, simply and free of charge, refuse the registration of cookies on your device so that neither we nor our partners collect information using cookies.

3 How do I manage the cookies on my computer, tablet, etc?

Most web browsers are automatically configured to accept cookies. However, you can configure your browser to accept or block all cookies or just some of them.

You can delete cookies already installed on your device (computer, smartphone, tablet...) at any time and configure most browsers to block cookies. However, in that instance, you may have to specify certain preferences each time that you visit our website. There is also a risk of certain services and functionalities being inaccessible. In other words, we cannot guarantee you access to all the services on our websites if you refuse to register cookies.

In your browser’s parameters, you can refuse the installation of cookies. How to activate or deactivate cookies and to delete them depends on your digital device and your web browser: